AA chief reveals his microwave tip to foil tech-savvy car thieves | Motoring

A steel field inside a microwave isn’t most individuals’s concept of a wise key cabinet, however the AA’s president has revealed it’s the place he shops his automobile fob.

Edmund King already used a Faraday pouch – a bag with a steel lining to dam indicators – to carry his keyless fob however has gone to further lengths since his spouse’s £50,000 Lexus was stolen by hackers.

He advised the Telegraph he was so paranoid concerning the theft being repeated that he put the Faraday pouch inside a steel purple field in a microwave behind his home. To make doubly positive, he additionally makes use of a standard steel steering wheel lock.

Tech-savvy thieves can relay indicators from automobile fobs saved in the home to hack their means in.

King believes the thieves at their Hertfordshire house used much more subtle strategies as a result of his spouse’s keys had been in a Faraday pouch “as far-off from the entrance door as potential, as a result of we knew about scanning and grabbing”.

His principle is that hackers took a sign from his spouse’s fob when she parked outdoors their home at about 6pm and got here again later to steal it.

“We predict they got here again at 11.45pm and used their pc machine to unlock the automobile and take away it with no smashing into the automobile or something,” King advised the Telegraph. “We didn’t discover it till the subsequent morning, by which period it was most likely in a container with its plates modified on its means overseas.”

Automotive theft has soared since lockdown lifted, with information from the Metropolitan police exhibiting a 16% rise within the yr to June 2022.

A few of this has been attributed to crime gangs utilizing tech kits purchased on-line to relay indicators from keyless fobs in individuals’s properties to unlock their automobiles.

Most automobiles that supply keyless entry are within the luxurious market, which makes it enticing for thieves to get on high of the know-how. Lexus, Land Rover and Mercedes use them, however they’re additionally changing into extra frequent in mid-range automobiles.

King desires producers to offer drivers the choice to disable hi-tech fobs and return to less complicated safety that’s tougher to hack.

“Are we that lazy that we can’t press a button on a key fob or flip a key if it protects us?,” he requested.