A hack effective on the Tesla Model 3 and Y cars would allow a thief to unlock a vehicle, start it and speed away, according to Sultan Qasim Khan, principal security consultant at the Manchester, UK-based security firm NCC Group. By redirecting communications between a car owner’s mobile phone, or key fob, and the car, outsiders can fool the entry system into thinking the owner is located physically near the vehicle.
Khan said he had disclosed the potential for attack to Tesla and that company officials didn’t deem the issue a significant risk. To fix it, the carmaker would need to alter its hardware and change its keyless entry system, Khan said. The revelation comes after another security researcher, David Colombo, revealed a way of hijacking some functions on Tesla vehicles, such as opening and closing doors and controlling music volume.
A representative at Bluetooth SIG, the collective of companies that manages the technology said: “The Bluetooth Special Interest Group prioritizes security and the specifications include a collection of features that provide product developers the tools they need to secure communications between Bluetooth devices.
A 2019 study by a British consumer group, Which, found that more than 200 car models were susceptible to keyless theft, using similar but slightly different attack methods such as spoofing wireless or radio signals.