Security News > 2022 > October > Police dismantles criminal ring that hacked keyless cars
Authorities from France, Latvia, and Spain arrested 31 suspects believed to be part of a car theft ring that targeted vehicles from two French car manufacturers.
The criminals only targeted cars that use keyless entry and start systems and stole them after exploiting their keyless technology to unlock the doors and start the engines without having to use the key fobs.
To do that, they used a fraudulent tool promoted online as an automotive diagnostic solution to replace the stolen cars' software and bypass the vehicles' keyless system to enter and steal them.
The cyberspace command of the French National Gendarmerie also seized the domain for the fraudulent software used to hack the cars' keyless tech.
While Europol didn't provide any details on how the attacks managed to hack the keyless vehicles, remote keyless entry systems are vulnerable to various there are.
Europol has also supported the investigation since March 2022 by providing intelligence and analysis support to the countries targeted by this criminal ring.