Flipper Zero Car Hacks Exposed: What’s Real and What’s Hype
www.carsandhorsepower.com
Criminals are marketing custom Flipper Zero firmware to unlock cars from Ford, VW, Hyundai, and more. Here’s what’s real, what’s hype, and how automakers are responding.

Underground developers are selling Flipper Zero “car unlock” packages for hundreds of dollars, complete with a PDF listing targeted makes and models and whether the hack enables only door unlocks or full start/drive.

  • AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    owning a hammer is not a crime, bashing in a car window with it is.

    also, it is currently illegal for car owners to put custom firmware in their cars & there is no open standard to allow 3rd party software. all stolen cars should be refunded by the manufacturer for forcing us to use their shitty soft/firmware.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      2 days ago

      Part of the problem is how insanely complex modern cars are. Modern cars can have 30+ different ECUs, and knowing which ECU does what can be difficult to figure out. Programming ECUs is also a bit of a dark art, and a model line of cars can go through a number of ECU versions over time.

      I used to own a car that the battery regularly died on. Eventually, after multiple dealer visits, a couple replaced batteries, and hours of internet research, I found two service recalls that described my cars symptoms perfectly. The problem for me was my cars VIN fell outside both recall notices. But I took printouts of both recall notices to a dealer and they agreed to look into it. They confirmed my car had buggy firmware, annd ended up installing updated firmware on two different ECUs. I never had a battery problem again after that. I’ve worked in tech for 30+ years and I wouldn’t have wanted to tackle that on my own…