Thieves Are Becoming Smarter: Carnappers Now Using Laptops to Start Stolen Vehicles

Nowadays, car manufacturers are making it harder and harder for thieves to steal automobiles off of streets and parking garages, but that does not mean that the thieves haven't gone a step up as well. Carnappers are now believed to be using technology such as laptop computers to bypass the various security measures in relatively new cars and start them.

According to a report from KHOU, this has raised a number of alarms in both law enforcement and the entire auto industry about the greater dependence and integration of technology into our everyday lives. The use of a laptop computer to start and steal a car was first documented when a pair of car thieves was caught on camera in Houston, Texas using such a device to start and then subsequently drive off in a stolen 2010 Jeep Wrangler. Police officers believe that this same exact method was also the one used when several other Wranglers and Cherokee models were stolen.

This took even veteran law enforcement officers completely off guard. "If you are going to hot-wire a car, you don't bring along a laptop," says Senior Officer James Woods. "We don't know what he is exactly doing with the laptop, but my guess is he is tapping into the car's computer and marrying it with a key he may already have with him so he can start the car," he adds.

What these developments mean is that there are some pretty sketchy vulnerabilities in various "computer-friendly" cars such as the Fiat, Chrysler, and Tesla models that thieves can potentially exploit, as per the Wall Street Journal. Most of these car manufacturers have already updated the computer interface on their vehicles some two years ago in order to avoid this type of incident from happening. Fiat Chrysler notably recalled 1.4 million vehicles with a software loophole back in 2014.