Adapted OwnStar MITM Wi-Fi attack can grab the virtual keys of BMW, Mercedes, Chrysler cars through a vulnerability in RemoteLink mobile app
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica :
Context & Ripple Effects
This disclosure lands weeks after Chrysler's 1.4-million-car recall for remotely hijackable vehicles, and it widens the problem from one brand to three: researchers adapted the OwnStar man-in-the-middle tool to exploit the RemoteLink companion app over Wi-Fi and capture virtual keys for BMW, Mercedes, and Chrysler cars.
It also extends a running series of access-system findings — cheap cloning of Volkswagen's shared fob cryptography, relay attacks stretching fob range on 24 models from 19 makers, and flawed immobilizer encryption at Asian brands — a line that later surfaced as API-level flaws across nearly 20 manufacturers.
First-order effects
- Owners who lock, start, or locate BMW, Mercedes, and Chrysler vehicles through the RemoteLink app are exposed to virtual-key theft by any attacker positioned to intercept the app's traffic on the same network.
- Chrysler now carries two concurrent remote-access problems — the recall fallout and a live key-theft vector through its connected-car software stack.
Second-order effects
- BMW and Mercedes face pressure to treat the app-to-vehicle authentication path as a hardened security boundary rather than a convenience feature, since the same companion-app channel is how customers expect remote control to work.
- The finding hands security researchers a template — attack the phone-to-cloud leg rather than the car itself — which the later cross-industry API findings suggest manufacturers were slow to close.
Third-order effects
- As virtual keys displace physical fobs, the repeated pattern of broken access systems points toward standardized, externally audited security for connected-car apps and APIs instead of each manufacturer guarding its own scheme in silence.
The trend: Vehicle access is migrating from physical key fobs to companion apps and cloud APIs, and researcher disclosures keep exposing that new surface faster than automakers secure it.