The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has alerted telecoms consumers and members of the public to an ongoing cyber-vulnerability that allows a nearby hacker to unlock a vehicle, start the engine wirelessly and make away with the automobile.
It said the fact that car remotes are categorised as short-range devices that make use of radiofrequency (RF) to lock and unlock cars informed the need for the commission to sensitise Nigerians to the emergent danger.
According to the latest advisory released by the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), the cybersecurity centre for the telecoms 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 resends them later to unlock the car.
