Vehicle thieves are moving away from key fob relay attacks and increasingly toward "CAN bus" intrusions, according to Bryan Gast (pictured), national vice president of intelligence and investigations at Équité Association, even as reprogramming remains the most common method used to steal cars in Canada.
Gast said relay attacks, in which criminals intercept the signal between a key fob and a vehicle, were a growing issue until manufacturers began building in countermeasures such as fobs that enter sleep mode when not in use. That shift, paired with greater consumer awareness, has pushed relay theft down the list of methods police and insurers are tracking most closely.
"That was a growing concern," Gast said. "Now it's down on the list between consumers protecting themselves and manufacturers making the key fob go into sleep mode. It still happens, but not to the degree of some of the other theft techniques."
Reprogramming, in which criminals plug into a vehicle and reprogram a key fob specific to that car, remains the dominant method, Gast said. CAN bus attacks, which involve accessing a vehicle's electronics through various entry points to start it without a key at all, are newer but rising quickly.
"I'd say the CAN bus is probably the newer kid on the block," Gast said. "But reprogramming thefts are still the main method of theft. I'd say relay thefts are on the decline and CAN bus is on the way up, and reprogramming thefts are still very high."
Asked how quickly the vehicles themselves need to catch up, Gast said the numbers speak for themselves.
"Right now, new vehicles can be stolen in 20 seconds with the right individual, with the right tool," Gast said.
He added that enforcement alone will not be enough to reverse the trend over the long term.
"We won't solve this through arrests," Gast said. "It does make a significant deterrent. But is it sustainable to solve this and look for a long-term decline simply through enforcement? Probably not."
Both methods exploit the same underlying gap, Gast said: a vehicle safety standard that has not been updated in nearly two decades. All vehicles manufactured or sold in Canada must meet a standard set by Transport Canada, he said, but that standard dates back to 2007 and has not accounted for the electronic theft methods now in use.
Transport Canada is reviewing and modernizing the standard, Gast said, including jurisdictional scans of other countries to determine which approaches are working elsewhere. He said the proposal under consideration would apply across North America rather than Canada alone.
"Canada and the US both would have to adopt it. That would protect all vehicles, regardless of where it was manufactured – in Canada or the US. It would meet the same standard."
Some manufacturers are moving ahead of the regulatory process. Gast pointed to Ford, which introduced a new theft-prevention feature for certain vehicles in the past month, though he cautioned it is too early to assess its effectiveness.
"Ford did a release in the last four weeks where they are introducing a new theft preventative measure to their vehicle for certain vehicles," Gast said. "That is too early to tell how effective it will be. But they're one of the first that have gone to that measure recently."
Gast said the underlying challenge across all these methods is unauthorized access to a vehicle's onboard computer and electronics, since the same tools used legitimately by dealerships and licensed locksmiths can also be used by criminals to start a car without a key.
"Criminals have tools; electronic tools are able to gain access, plug into the vehicle and start their vehicle," Gast said. "Obviously, there's legitimate uses for those tools, whether it be the dealership or a locksmith, but trying to differentiate between authorized and unauthorized access to the vehicle" remains the core problem regulators are trying to solve.
Vehicle theft remains a financially motivated crime with few constraints on the criminals behind it, Gast said, which keeps pressure on manufacturers and regulators to close gaps before new methods take hold.
"Criminals have an advantage," Gast said. "They have no jurisdictional boundaries. They have no information sharing issues. They have no charter to worry about. Money is no object. This is a financially motivated crime, so the vehicle itself becomes the commodity, and they're profiting from it."
