The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Sunday alerted telecom consumers and members of the public on an ongoing cyber-vulnerability that allows a nearby hacker to unlock vehicles, start their engines wirelessly and make away with the cars.
The commission said in a notice by its spokesman Ikechukwu Adinde that the fact that car remotes are categorised short range devices that make use of radio frequency (RF) to lock and unlock cars informed the need for the NCC to alert the general public on this emergent danger.
According to the latest advisory released by the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), the cybersecurity centre for the telecom sector established by the NCC, the vulnerability is a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack or, more specifically, a replay attack in which an attacker intercepts the RF signals normally sent from a remote key fob to the car, manipulates these signals, and re-sends them later to unlock the car at will.
With this latest type of cyber-attack, it is also possible to manipulate the captured commands and re-transmit them to achieve a different outcome altogether. “Multiple researchers disclosed a vulnerability, which is said to be used by a nearby attacker to unlock some Honda and Acura car models and start their engines wirelessly. The attack consists of a threat actor capturing the radio frequency (RF) signals sent from your key fob to the car and resending these signals to take control of your car’s remote keyless entry system,” the advisory stated emphatically.
However, the NCC-CSIRT, in the advisory, offered some precautionary measures or solutions that can be adopted by car owners to prevent falling victim to the attack.
It said, “When affected, the only mitigation is to reset your key fob at the dealership. Besides, the affected car manufacturer may provide a security mechanism that generate fresh codes for each authentication request, this makes it difficult for an attacker to ‘replay’ the codes thereafter. Additionally, vulnerable car users should store their key fobs in signal-blocking ’Faraday pouches’ when not in use.”
The advisory encouraged car owners in the stated categories to choose passive keyless entry (PKE) as opposed to remote keyless entry (RKE), which would make it harder for an attacker to read the signal due to the fact that criminals would need to be at close proximity to carry out their acts.
Additionally, in a related advisory, the NCC, based on another detection by CSIRT, informed the general public about the resurgence of Joker Trojan-Infected Android Apps on Google Play Store. This arose due to the activities of criminals who intentionally download legitimate apps from the Play Store, modify them by embedding the Trojan malware and then uploading the app back to the Play Store with a new name.
The malicious payload is only activated once the apps goes live on the Play Store, which enables the apps to scale through Google’s strict evaluation process. Once installed, these apps request for permissions that once granted, enable the apps to have access to critical functions such as text messages and notifications.
As a consequence, a compromised device will subscribe unwitting users to premium services, billing them for services that do not exist. A device like this can also be used to commit Short Messaging Service (SMS) fraud while the owner is unaware.
It can click on online ads automatically and even use SMS One Time password (OTPs) to secretly approve payments. Without checking bank statements, the user will be unaware that he or she has subscribed to an online service. Other actions, such as stealing text messages, contacts, and other device data, are also possible.
To avoid falling victim to the manipulation of hackers deploying Joker Trojan-Infected Android Apps, Android users have been advised to avoid downloading unnecessary apps or installing apps from unofficial sources.
