A social media trend, dubbed the “Kia Challenge,” has appeared to compound the automakers’ problems in recent years, with people posting videos showing how to steal Hyundai and Kia cars. At its height, the Kia Challenge was linked to at least 14 reported crashes and eight fatalities, according to figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
About 9 million vehicles have been impacted by the rash of thefts, including Hyundai Elantras and Sonatas as well as Kia Fortes and Souls. Hyundai and Kia earlier this year agreed to pay $200 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by drivers who had their vehicles stolen.
Technology is helping foil car thieves making life miserable for owners of Hyundai and Kia vehicles.
Hyundai and Kia upgraded their cars’ anti-theft tech in early 2023. Vehicles equipped with the enhanced software will only start if the owner’s key, or an identical duplicate, is in the ignition.
The rate at which the Korean automakers’ cars are stolen has fallen by more than half since the companies upgraded their anti-theft software, according to new research from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI). Hyundai and Kia thefts have soared in recent years after criminals discovered that certain car models lacked engine immobilizers — technology that has long been standard in other vehicles.
You’ll still get a broken window and steering column because the thieves can’t tell if the car has had the update or not and will still attempt to steal it.
Hyundai and Kia upgraded their cars’ anti-theft tech in early 2023. Vehicles equipped with the enhanced software will only start if the owner’s key, or an identical duplicate, is in the ignition.
Fucking… What? A 2023 anti theft technology upgrade added the space age cutting edge concept of starting the car with… the key?
If my car could start without the key in the bloody ignition I’d be furious, that’s what the key is for, haha. You can add extra doohickeys to enhance security, but the first line of defence is the key that starts the car.
Absolute madness.
Watch the channel 5 Kia boys episode. It was really fucking easy to steal kia’s n Hyundai’s. Took the guy like 30 seconds to do it. You just ripped a piece of plastic off, and jammed a USB cord into the ignition, turned it, and off u went. They encountered one of these updated ones and failed as well.
Warning, the Kia boys are fucking insufferable twats.
No this is how every car was stolen prior to the 90s/00s. The “USB cord” is a red herring as the shape of the USB-A port just happens to match the remaining bit of the ignition cylinder once the lock has been removed, but journalists love to hype that part up as if this is some technological attack.
Keyless start is fucking awesome though, just get in the car and drive. I wouldn’t even consider a car without after having one with it. Pretty much all other manufacturers have this in a safe way that doesn’t make the cars easier to steal. Its not the keyless start that’s the issue, its how they implemented it.
I mean, many new cars don’t even have an old school key ignition at all.
A lot of smart key cars are vulnerable to relay attacks. It’s not a solved security issue by any means.
Nobody is fucking doing that, though! This isn’t a “oh I will hack this person using a relay attack” attack, it’s some dumb kids breaking into cars using physical measures. They are NOT going to be using a RELAY ATTACK
What’s more, all keyless cars still have a fob with proximity and if the fob dies, they legally have to have a way to start the car without the fob battery which is why they all have an nfc reader somewhere (usually in a cup holder) so you can put you dead fob on it and the car will start like normal.
All keyless start kias and hyundais are/were immune to the Kia boys trick
So what was the exploit then? They could get in to the car without the key?
That’s…not how rolling codes and tight timing requirements work. There are almost zero keyless entry car models that can be unlocked, let alone started, with hardware at the sophistication level of a flipper.
They were vulnerable because they didn’t use chipped keys therefore people could break the ignition cylinder off and rotate the actual switch behind it to start the car. Cars with immobilizers still wouldn’t start even if you removed the lock cylinder because the sensor didn’t detect the chip. This is basically how most all cars worked prior to the 90s/00s which is where the trope of “using a screwdriver to steal a car” came from.
I’m really curious how they were able to add this in using software alone since you’d need some sort of sensor to detect the key along with keys that have a chip embedded in them.
😄so, my dacia spring can be stolen like that as well? It has one key without even a battery 🤣 (I think) Luckily I live in peaceful Switzerland, so I don’t even have to lock the car overnight…
Edit: it locks the steering wheel if not started, maybe that would be enough?
You might have an immobilizer as no battery is needed in the key, it’s just a little chip embedded inside.
As far as the steering wheel lock, I think it can be defeated as well as those were used at least as far back as the 1970s and cars were still stolen then too. I believe people just hammered a screwdriver into the ignition to be able to bypass it.
You should Google your model of car to see if it has an immobilizer.
Yep. No one would have stolen my SAAB anyway, since it was a stick shift, but if someone had tried, they’d have gotten a nasty surprise. On the '80s models the stick shift had a half inch steel pin that locked the gear shift of the car in reverse if a sensor in the ignition didn’t sense the key, and tell it to disengage. You could hotwire the car just fine, but I would almost pay to see how you explain to the cops why you’re driving down the road in reverse.
I don’t know this to be a fact, but we own a Kia targeted by this whole ‘challenge’ business, and my understanding is that this issue is primarily because remote start was a factory installed feature for most of the generation and the “software update” that enhances security prevents remote starters from working.
I had my Sonata stolen last year. The problem is that, by default, there was neither a key checker nor a steering immobilizer built into the vehicles. These are industry standard features for every car manufacturer… Except Kia and Hyundai. These are required features in every car sold in every Western nation… Except the United States. To have excluded this literal 90s tech from their vehicles when they’re so common that no one would ever stop to think about whether their car has them constitutes a serious lie by omission on the part of Kia and Hyundai, in my opinion. If I knew that all you had to do was rip off the ignition and shove something onto a peg to screw off with the car, I would have told the dealer to stick it up his butt.
For those wondering: I had comprehensive insurance, so I was paid the full value of the vehicle after it was totaled. I bought a Toyota Camry with the money and it’s a great car. I am never buying Kia or Hyundai cars again and I recommend everyone else avoid them from here on out. Like, if this is what they’re willing to do to save $30 per assembled vehicle, what else might be lurking in their newer vehicles that we won’t know about until it’s too late?
My car was never affected in the first place and I’m still getting fucked by my insurance saying it’s a “theft risk” charging out the ass
Insurance companies like to claim they’ve done all the math and research but they’re just lazy asses looking for any reason to raise rates.
Here’s my simple solution: drive a super old car. My car:
- isn’t worth stealing
- is immune to popular TikTok attacks because the tech is too old
- drives just fine
There are some downsides, but at least I don’t have to deal with this nonsense.
I once got into my car and was surprised how the seat was farther back then when I left it. I glanced around and it was clear someone had jimmied the passenger door open.
I’m fairly confident, although I have nothing to back this up, that when they realized it was a stick, they decided not to try and steal it.
I went from an 07 Escape to a 2023 RAV4. The thing just won’t shut the fuck up. Mike any kinda of parking the detection beeps. Console software is annoying.
Miss my relatively dumb car.
The legal requirement that cars just beep within zero seconds if you start them without a buckled seatbelt is just actively harmful to safety. It trains you to despise and ignore all safety alarms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue
But that’s not actually a thing. I start both of my newer vehicles before I’m buckled. No beeping until I actually put it in drive.
It rarely happens because I always buckle
Bonus: If it’s old enough and you get into a collision, your car will be fine and just tear through the other one like a hot knife through butter.
That is painfully untrue. Check out this video of an old Bel Air vs an 09 Malibu. Both cars get fucked up, but only one of those drivers has any chance of walking away from the accident, and it’s sure as fuck not the one in the classic.
I just had to purchase a vehicle. My insurance company basically asked me not to buy a KIA or Hyundai and warned that the premiums for those makes were super high.
It’s funny that even though theft rates have plummeted since the mass software upgrade, premiums have stayed high. They have savant-level mathematicians (actuaries) evaluating risk and even with compelling data showing otherwise, they choose to keep labeling these cars high risk and continue to charge exorbitant premiums.
The whole “insurance price is determined by geniuses” thing is just bullshit. They benefit greatly from perpetuating the myth but never really demonstrate competence. Their calculations are very non-specific. For example determining risk by ZIP code in places where one side of the tracks/street/infrastructure built with structural discrimination in mind is just not granular enough. Another example would be that some model of vehicle came with optional emergency braking, but taking the option doesn’t change insurance calculations at all, but having the feature as standard for all models reduces the price for those models.
“Insurance actuaries are sevants” is just an extension of the lie that “free” markets are 100% efficient and always correct.
Well I mean actuaries are like savants. Years ago in uni my calc III college prof was one. Amazingly sharp dude. Do I think insurance companies over-generalize their risk assessments? Yupp. Do insurance companies likely ignore their actuaries and set premiums to make outrageous profit? Probably.
Disclosure: I hate insurance companies. Also that professor was super weird
Same. I was looking at cars and told my insurance, who then said, “If you get a KIA, you never have to worry about losing your car keys, since you can search online on how easy it is to break in.”
That throwaway joke threw me into the rabbit hole of the Kia challenge. Definitely a shit show.
