Public Service Alert: Thieves Have Found A New Way to Steal Your Cars

Pakistani automobile users already have it pretty hard with car theft being a much common occurrence here when compared to the rest of the world. Now it seems thieves have found a new way which can be used to unlock and steal your car or at least get away with taking any precious items from your vehicle.

The New Technique

Thieves have started using code grabbers. These gadgets allow them to copy the code sent from your keyless entry remote (the one you use to lock and unlock your car doors). Modern cars even come with remote ignition and immobilisers which can also be copied by these code grabbers.

Thieves can copy your remote’s unlock code and get into your car

As soon as you lock the car, the thieves standing nearby can copy the code and use it to break into your car without triggering the alarm. It is as if your car was unlocked by you. The thieves wait for you to get out of sight before they come near the car.

We would like to mention here that remote keyless entry technology was upgraded in the 1990s to change codes every time a button is pressed.

Unfortunately, technologies used in our cars are mostly dated and even if they are new, they mostly belong to the same companies which allows thieves to work out the random patterns and get unlock codes. To do this, the thieves can trigger your car’s alarm multiple times to make you lock it again.

How to be Aware if A Thief is Around

There are two signs you need to be alert to are that when you use your car remote and you do not hear a lock alert the first time, it means that there is someone snooping for your remote’s code. However, this can also happened of you are out of range or have weak batteries.

The second clue is more important. If your car unlocks while you move away from it, you can be certain that the thieves have tried the code to see if it is working. In such a scenario you need to take your car elsewhere and refrain from coming to that area for a few days.

How to Prevent This

There are quite a few techniques you can use to avoid this. Some of them are listed below:

• Do not use keyless entry remote while outside your house or in public areas. There’s less chance that someone is snooping around your house but public areas are filled with car thieves.
• Always use you key to lock and unlock all doors. Same goes for car ignition if you have that feature.
• You need to get new locks installed which are more secure and require you or your key to be in the car for the car to start.
• Do not keep precious belongings like smartphones, laptops, jewellery, property deeds etc. in your car as cunning thieves could be after your belongings only too.
• If possible, get your car a fingerprint reader, a manual lock or something similar to make car theft more difficult. Always remember that manual methods are the most difficult to bypass.

In case something like this happens, you need to have your car insured and a GPS tracker installed in a secure location so that the car can be retrieved. Also remember to report to the police as soon as something like this happens.

Final Words

For the safety of your family, yourself, your car and the precious belongings in your car, you need to stay vigilant and upgrade your car’s security system or at least lock the car manually.

Also share this public service message with your friends and family. The public needs to know about it to fight it. A car is an expensive belonging and losing it can result in huge financial losses. Not to mention that in a country like ours which is facing issues like terrorism, your car could be used for a terror attack where all the blame would end up on you.

So help your friends and family by letting them know of this new tactic by thieves and how they can stay safe.

We are in the process of getting official confirmation from our sources in the security departments to get more details on this. So watch this space.