After being in controversy for more than a year, Volkswagen is again in the news for their vulnerability in locking system that can be hacked through a hacking of the keyless entry systems.
The University of Birmingham's School of Computer conducted a 17-page long study and found that hackers can use a $40 battery-powered RF transceiver to essentially clone the automaker's Remote Keyless Entry system and lock or unlock a VW vehicle whenever they like.
Authors Flavio Garcia and David Oswald studied more than 100 million VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda cars sold since 1995, and found that they can be exploited by the simple hacking of the RKE's cryptographic key.
"We discovered that the RKE systems of the majority of VW Group vehicles have been secured with only a few cryptographic keys that have been used worldwide over a period of almost 20 years," the study noted.
The study also involved German security firm, Kasper & Oswald, according to them at least 10 other car brands are vulnerable to similar hacking schemes. Those studies will be released later.
"We were kind of shocked," Timo Kasper told the BBC. "Millions of keys using the same secrets - from a cryptography point of view, that's a catastrophe."
The researchers are currently working with Volkswagen on solving the issue.
The models that are not affected by the issue include the Golf, Tiguan, Touran and Passat, a VW spokesperson said.