Attempted car theft last night (Marmora Road)

[Chris360]

Hi, i just wanted to mention that there was an attempted theft of my car on Marmora Rd last night. Someone had put the lock in on the drivers door and tried to hack into the cars computer to re-program a dummy key (something that was reported on Watchdog a month or so ago). Luckily they didn't succeed in stealing the car, but did cause a fair amount of annoying damage in the process. Just wanted to warn people who may have a similar make of car and for everyone in the area to keep their eyes and ears open.

Cheers

[lane lover]

What is your make of car?

[Chris360]

It's a BMW 3 Series

[ianr]

Here's one of many articles about the process, with some video as well, showing what to look out for. They get into the car, plug a device that looks much like a TV remote into the diagnostic port under the dashboard, and do some reprogramming operations -- takes a couple of minutes.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132526-hack-the-diagnostics-connector-steal-yourself-a-bmw-in-3-minutes

[Mr&Mrs]

Wow, that's pretty worrying. Thanks for the heads up....

[Preston93]

Do you know if there's anything you can do to stop this? I rang bmw when the programme came out and they said they were only fixings x6s.

[Preston93]

What year is your 3 series?

[slims]

I think it's the BMWs with push button start.from 04 onwards. Best thing to do us take your to BMW to get a software update and try get a mechanic to hide the obd port. Check out the BMW forums for advice.

[EGL]

Our 3 series was stolen from just Last week on melbourne grove. Seems they are able to clone the key somehow because there was no damage and the stereo etc. looked like it was 'uninstalled' by professionals so they know what they're doing. Calling BMW tomorrow.

Excellent response from police, tried to take prints etc but no response. They also advised contacting BMW.

[EJTH]

This was the subject of discussion on Radio4 last week. They recommended you get in touch with BMW as it's a known problem and BMW should be fixing it. It came up in a consumer programme in relation to it affecting your insurance

[Heber2012]

BMW did the security update on our 3 series in October, it's fairly quick, only takes an hour or so. Was such a relief after many sleepless nights!

[Annasfield]

Can't you fit one of those disc locks on the sterling wheel to act as a deterrent?

A mate of mine visited down here and put one on his brother's golf. He didn't realise he'd left the keys for the lock at home in the midlands. It took the AA about 2 hours to get it off using multiple hacksaw blades.