Regardless of what it entails, it will presumably take some time before a reduction in thefts (if significant) makes its way through to insurance premiums.

You're expecting a reduction in insurance premiums? Not on this planet...

Worth that much?

Well, if they were happy to pay that, then it was worth that to them. But they were overcharged, by a factor of around hundred!

If the crims hadn't been in a rush, they could've spent that on getting themselves some education (or just spend a few days watching youtube and scanning reddit, if they didn't care about understanding what is going on) then buying a couple hundred quid of ready-made device*

Clearly, you should be in the gadget-providing business, good margins there.

* You know the one, sounds like a dolphin

But can you play Tetris on it?

Tetris?

If you nick enough Hyundai cars, you could pile 'em up for Tetris. But Space Invaders might be less - brutal.

It'll probably run DOOM. Then again so could the car. Oooh. Idea for the next OTA software update!

The real question is can it play Crysis, Shirley!

Grand Theft Auto???

You can buy a brand-new boxed Gameboy for about $2000 and play Tetris on that. I know where my money would go.

(Seriously who's buying stolen Hyundais anyway?)

You also need to add £289 for initial profile on your tires. The brakes will only function with full force for an additional £199 and the steering wheel will only allow you to turn left unless you pay the right fee of £1337.

Please be sure to read the small print. We, the manufacturer, are allowed to revoke any and all software license at any time for any reason we choose. Continued use of said car after revocation of that software license is an infringement of our rights. You will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and every kilometre driven without a license will result in harsh monetary penalties of up to £150,000 per kilometre.

It would have to be quoted per mile here.

Get your point, but after BMW *actually* tried to charge a subscription for the heated seats, any satire on this topic is dead and buried.

You can't outstupid reality.

No, they actually *did* charge a subscription for heated seats, but withdrew it after floods of complaints on social media.

Well that is a car maker to strike off my list of candidates to replace my ageing Toyota...

>> The government announced an intent earlier this year to ban keyless repeaters and signal jammers

Cos thieves obey the law, right? A bit like banning the stealing of cars, cos that stopped it, didn't it.

It means you can bust someone for "going equipped" even if they have not actually stolen a car yet.

Arguably they could do that anyway. The Theft Act is deliberately widely drawn on the subject of going equipped:

"A person shall be guilty of an offence if, when not at his place of abode, he has with him any article for use in the course of or in connection with any burglary or theft".

New proposals are probably designed to prevent their easy import. A bit like illegal drugs, cos they don't get through either.

£49 doesn't get you much of anything these days, you'd be lucky to get two rounds in at the pub with that. Given the eye-watering prices of electric cars, the buyers aren't going to be short of a bob or two. This looks more like a charge put in to stop the showrooms filling up with "Compo Charlies" wanting a free upgrade.

Of course that doesn't make it right to charge extra after the fact because the product is substandard. I'm sure prospective Hyundai customers will be unimpressed at this demonstration of corporate tightwaddery.

Indeed. It's almost like the old "send a self-addressed stamped envelope to .. for your free prize". Prove you care enough to help us help you. It would have been better PR to find some non-financial hoop to jump through.

Still, not right to avoid a full recall when valuable police time is (occasionally) being spent on an issue they created.

"We could offa yas some protection for yer car ... for a small contribution. Nice car ... be a shame if somethin' was ta happen to it."

An_Old_Dog...

Are you from Cleveland, Ohio?

/s

One of the reasons I don't want keyless ignition on my next car is that it's replacing one problem with several exciting new ones;

Even if they can unlock the fob doors on my current car, the engine immobiliser doesn't de-activate without a key physically in the steering wheel.

Foolproof? Not by a long shot, but it's another brick in the wall; sometimes you can't stop crime, just move it onto easier targets.

(Also if anyone from Labour is reading this; how about penalising car manufacturers for insecure products, rather than making illegal things illegal.)

"[...] just move it onto easier targets."

That's how I can leave my bike locked up at the railway station. It looks shittier than most other bikes and is locked better.

Hyundai's website update, which announced the optional security upgrade, said: "All vehicles produced by Hyundai are developed and certified in accordance with all applicable security and regulatory standards in place at the time of production and sale, including the applied security systems installed.

"As part of the company's commitment to supporting our customers, we are able to offer a subsidized software and hardware upgrade for a customer contribution of £49."

In other words we are doing the bare minimum which we know is not up to the job, not that we admit that in the glossy brochure. Once we have sold the car we will continue to screw the sucker \w buyer for what we can.

I’m out and about right now so a detail-light comment, but this is a real issue and if you have one of those cars, as I do, there is a simple solution. When you lock your car, disable the “proximity” features that involve you key communicating with the car as you approach.

On my Kia this is evidenced but the wing mirrors unfolding as I go near it, and I can disable it by holding down the buttons on the key fob for five seconds until the hazards flash.

I’ve been out sniffing with a software-defined radio and can confirm this disables the conversation that allows the device to cycle through all the keys and brute force the locks. Which is only possible because they massively cocked up the cryptography by making predictable (as I recall) 24 of the 64 bits in the key.

I know very little about car remote technology, but why is it such a massive security threat on newer cars? Why can't the car/fob have preshared keys on them during the pairing stage, and then utilise the typical encryption methods that are common on the web? How is it so abysmally designed that's it open to man-in-the-middle type attacks?

Maybe there's something very obvious that I'm missing?

"Maybe there's something very obvious that I'm missing?"

Yes, the manufacturers are tightwads who don't give a flying f*** about security as it's not their problem after you've handed over the spondulix.

The thing you are missing is that I am pretty sure manufacturers use the SAME electronic key for all cars (even if there might be a different physical key). We discovered this after we bought a new car, then found our key fob also unlocked a car of same make and model that was equally new. One key press equals one key rollover, I guess. Different cars will have different rollovers over time so that's all right then innit.

So the observation that the dodgy box allows ALL keys to be tried in a brute force attack shows that not even basic cyber security has been applied here, so that after a few attempts of wildly incorrect keys, the car won't open for say five minutes and incrementally longer as time goes on. If you've driven your car on many trips this becomes a time to break versus opportunity to do so problem. Make the former long enough and the hacker will give up and go away to try some other car. Also key rollover should be random but paired car to key fob. The problem will vanish quick enough.

Also key rollover should be random but paired car to key fob.

So how would that cope with the common situation where more than one key fob is used - independently but with one key used much more than the other?

Come to think of it, how does it work nowadays?

One of the problems with so-called keyless entry is that no matter how clever the encryption, if the signals between car and key can be relayed man-in-the-middle-style without the need to understand the signal itself (and they can), the car opens and starts. The "security" is provided by the key being too far away, which is crap.

Curiously I have just received a free sleepy-battery from JLR. If the battery doesn't move for 3 minutes, it stops working (until moved again) disabling the key and stopping it responding to keyless requests from the car. I've tested it by leaving it next to the car (ie within range) and it seems to do the trick. I still keep it in a tin though. I don't know how long the battery life is or how much a replacement costs.

...as to whether they do the right thing and swallow the £49 costs themselves.

Just as it will be my discretion as to whether I ever buy another Hyundai ever again*

* Spoiler: I won't

Should be free

Not doing it for other models ?

And will they ever release the firmware outside of their homeland to allow you to use the inbuilt cameras as a dashcam ?

I'm driving a 7th gen Accord EX from 2008, it's a CDTi and still gets me in the region of 42-44mpg with the limited amount of driving I do these days (WFH since 2017).

At just over 17yrs old, it's got it's flaws... the cruise control no longer works, the centre LCD is flaky and goes off/on at random with bumps in the road (likely a dry joint on the PCB pins to the screen) and the bluetooth module failed a couple of years ago. I'd already replaced it with one I repaired (old trick of backing the PCB in the oven to reflow the solder can fix it some times).

But it drives well, passes it's MOT without issues and for a 17yr old car, on has 123k on the clock.

Everytime I read about 'newer' cars... I become more determined to keep it... it's reliable, I can get parts for it.. and there's no way for me to get f*cked in the arse by Honda... road tax is £18 a month, I put about £55 in diesel in it a month and fully comp insurance with all the bells and whistles is under £400 a year. I've only done 23k miles in that 6+yrs.

It also only cost me £1800 just over 6yrs ago.

Nearly maintenance free, wear and tear & servicing is all it's required... had a wheel bearing, rear brakes, discs and a full set of tyres in my ownership, and will be doing another new set of tyres and front discs/pads before winter.

All in... cost of ownership per year inc fuel, insurance, road tax and maintenance... less than £1500 a year.

Friends... buying new cars on leases and spending £300 a month on lease alone before fuel and insurance... at least 3x what I do.

I have been looking at a potential replacement... won't be diesel... no point now, don't do the longer runs that would benefit fuel use... won't be new... cash only purchase... used car prices are stupid expensive now. I saw an identical one to mine, same year, 20k fewer miles on it... £3200 6yrs after I paid £1800 for one with fewer miles on it at the time.

Was considering a hybrid of some kind... but I think, I'll switch to a petrol from mid 2010's... as long as it's Japanese built and has heated seats... I'm ok.

They are likely footing a pretty significant portion of the bill (hardware + installation, mechanics ain't cheap these days), why bother with such a small part of it? i feel like the PR of "free security upgrade" would be a lot better than this...