Aftermarket Vehicle Trackers & Immobilizers: Redux

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Presented at Wahckcon 2016 by

Vehicles of all shapes and sizes are bought and sold every day with measures designed to protect them from being stolen or make them easier to retrieve. Re-enforced doors, various locking mechanisms, key based immobilizers and proximity fobs are just some of the countermeasures designed by manufacturers. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford the latest and greatest security when they buy a car, not to mention a second-hand one. So what about aftermarket solutions? I'm sure I could grab something off AliExpress! I mean, it couldn't be that bad? Right? This presentation will cover the deconstruction (both software and hardware) of cheap vehicle immobilizers and trackers that you can buy for less than the price of a takeaway dinner. Purchasable from retail stores across the globe, and through online sites like AliExpress, these wonderful [citation needed] devices can be installed into your vehicle with very little electrical knowledge. In fact, some mechanics offer to buy and install these devices as a service. Just how many of these devices exist though? Well, at the time of writing the manufacturers boast shipping 360,000 plus units. Not only do we get the ability to communicate with these devices by texting them, but we get a webapp to use and a mobile app too! I wonder what we can find in this one. Oh, and it looks like the manufacturers were generous enough to use common chips when building the device too. Serial wire debug, anyone? Let's just say that the phrase ""You get what you pay for"" comes to mind very strongly throughout this talk.