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Unlocking any car from X brand in most of the world

(shubs.io)

Blue car in the background is a facelifted fifth gen RAV4. Obvious from the shape of the mirrors and headlight. Toyota/Lexus would align with the "both brands" remark.

White one is harder to tell obviously, but the shape of the mirror looks the same, and you can see the top of the dash has a chamfered shape that looks an awful lot like this pic: https://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/toyota/rav4/2022/oem/2022...

Posting a video demo probably isn't a great idea for this kind of thing. I'm sure some sicko could have figured this out just from the sound the locks make.

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“Any car” is perhaps too strong a claim. If it is Toyota/Lexus, I will say that I don’t think my 2009 Camry has this issue. I am quite sure that the fourth-generation Hilux my brother has does not.
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I'm glad I bought a Corolla LE that does have remote start. I still have to insert the key to start the engine. So much more secure.
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Warning: The video in the article contains VERY loud bleeps.
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Hi - I've fixed this and uploaded a replacement video with less loud beeps. Sorry about that.
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God.. Nice write-up, horrible video.. "oh let's go from portrait to landscape in the middle of the recording!".

It's a one minute video, would it have been so hard to redo it.

Edit: raining downvotes, well fuck me, I guess you all prefer sloppy shit.

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you would do yourself some good to learn to differentiate constructive criticism from this sort of mean vitriol. I have no doubt that this is the explanation for the downvotes. there is truly no need to be so abrasive. it only serves to detract from whatever good-faith intentions you had, if any.
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  “Thanks for the nice write-up. Gotta admit the video still irks me. Like, portrait to landscape mid-recording… Since it was only a minute, think re-recording would be well worth it.”
-anti-sloppy non-downvote-magnet comment potential
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For anyone who is trying to decipher the clunky title, it means "Unlocking vehicles from a major manufacturer, across the globe" The manufacturer is not disclosed.
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This is a Rav4
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Hyundai
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Not if you take them (there are two security workers behind this) at their word:

  In the past few years, we'd found ways to remotely control vehicles from Honda, Acura, Nissan, Infiniti, Hyundai, Genesis, Ford, Porsche, Kia, and Subaru, but we'd never found a vulnerability that enabled remote access to either an Automaker #1 or Automaker #2 vehicle.
Hacking Two Automakers: ForgeRock Path Confusion, RCE, and Remote Vehicle Access (November 7, 2026) - By Shubham Shah and Sam Curry - https://samcurry.net/forgerock
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Combined with the "across both of their brands" comment, and we're restricted to cars available new in Australia in 2023, I'm guessing Toyota/Lexus. Could be Land Rover/Jaguar too.

Why would they be so circumspect? Presumably the automaker has fixed this by now.

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On the non-Australian side (the Sam Curry blog)

  After we reported the vulnerability, both automakers fixed it within about two hours and rotated the affected credentials. The affected systems served customers in multiple regions; we tested the complete chain only with US accounts and vehicles.
and I suspect there may have been a ninja edit- I swear blind I read a throw away line about why they were keeping the company name suppressed an hour or so ago, now I cannot find it in either article. As I recall, they "normally would disclose" but "times are busy and security folks are hard pressed" (paraphrasing) - they were giving the auto folks a bit of leeway for a bit (likely by request).
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It probably wouldn't be JLR. They're having to be the insurer of last resort in their home country because some of the high-end Land Rovers are so trivial to steal they're otherwise near effectively uninsurable. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/range-rover-thef...
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That article says the big problem was with "old architecture" so it is possible that somebody brave at JLR actually persuaded the Powers That Be that they should invest an hour's time and $10 to do a halfway good job at this and beat the poor state of the art.

Often when the situation is "Most makers are 1/10, but we're 0/10" a small amount of effort can get you to 4/10 and until the attackers up their game you look stellar, even though in reality you're still doing a poor job, everybody else was much worse

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Defamation/legal risk, even if such legal actions will be spurious
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The color scheme on the admin panel suggests Toyota.
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Can anybody guess what automaker?
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LLM seems to think it’s Toyota/Lexus based on an open source alternative client[1] documenting the same APIs that appear in the blog post.

A cursory glance seems to suggest it’s right and it took less than 2 mins to both ask and check its answer, which is a little scary.

[1] https://github.com/ide/lexy/blob/main/docs/vehicle-status-an...

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Looks like the XA50 AFAICT
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Definitely XA50. My sister bought one last week, time to find the sim card....
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Yes the car in the video looks like an RX350
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RAV4 is always in the top 10 of most stolen cars [1]. Maybe this is why.

[1]: https://transconnect.com/en/blog/car-theft-in-europe-popular...

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Isuzu is my guess? They might be tied to https://whg-telematics.com.au (my guess at the redacted URL if it is even partially real in the post).
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Why should we?
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From reputation alone, I would not be surprised if it were Kia/Hyundai.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge

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It's extremely difficult to find, hire, and then put into the right position a competent security engineer. Meanwhile competent hackers grow on trees. I understand that mistakes here were silly, but that's not the point. The point is, security is fucking difficult.

IMO the practical solution to this problem - because telling companies "just do security better" works as much as telling fat people "just eat less" - would be some kind of central registry of car parts. This was already implemented in iPhones back in the day that if a repair wasn't signed off by Apple, you couldn't install a new part to your iPhone. I imagine that if the government had a similar thing but for cars, then thieves would stop stealing cars because each stolen part would eventually be flagged somewhere and the end customer would be upset, never coming back.

I say "government" because companies cannot be trusted to make a simple interface "log in -> enter part number and car license plate -> ready to install". I assume that outside of the US the "log into government website" part is already solved in one way or another. On the privacy side, it really shouldn't be controversial, assuming that people are already used to the VIN having a repair history tied to it.

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[delayed]
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