electronic car hacking was responsible for almost half of the vehicle thefts in London last year, the Metropolitan police has confirmed.
The new wave of car crime means thieves no longer have to smash a window or break a lock to steal a car, and can instead programme a device in just 10 seconds to unlock a vehicle.
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Gadgets, available online, can fool the car into thinking a smart key is present or be plugged directly into the ECU to create a blank key.
The Metropolitan police said 47 per cent of the 21,000 thefts in the capital in 2013 were as a result of this method. one of the few ways to combat the problem is to install a Thatcham-certified tracking system which operates separately to the targeted ECUs and allows the car to be tracked and recovered by police.
Predictably, high-end cars were most targeted by thieves last year and the average value of cars stolen and recovered was £40,000 in 2013, which was up £6,000 from the previous year.
Mike Briggs, Thatcham’s security research manager, said: “Car makers are very focused on addressing this issue and we know that progress has been made over the past two years.”