PCA Forums

VINs could be used in mass car cloning operation

Believe it or not, the most sought-after information exposed in the database is the VINs, a serial number unique to each vehicle.

For the last decade, car thieves have been using stolen VIN numbers to pass stolen cars as legitimate...

...VINs could be used to create replica keys

Besides car cloning, VINs can also be used for other criminal operations. For example, last week, a motorcycle gang from Mexico known as the Hooligans have shown the world another way of using stolen VINs.

The group operated by initially obtaining the VIN of a car they wanted to steal. The group focused only on Jeep Wranglers.

After getting his VIN, the gang would illegally access a car dealership's proprietary database from where they'd steal two codes necessary to create replacement keys.

The gang would then use these secondary keys to open cars and drive off with people's cars in the middle of the night.

Compared to car cloning, this method is more complex, as it requires access to proprietary car key codes databases, but if an attacker finds 10 million VINs on the Internet than he's already halfway there.