Apple AirTags being used by thieves to steal cars — what you can do

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Apple tree AirTags being used by thieves to steal cars — what you tin can practice

An Apple tree AirTag that seems to accept been retrieved from a hiding place inside a automobile's bumper. (Image credit: York Regional Police, Ontario)

Car thieves are using Apple AirTags to steal cars, study the York Regional Police (YRP) in the suburbs north of Toronto.

According to the YRP's public service announcement yesterday (Dec. ii), the thieves look for desirable cars in public places, such as shopping-mall parking lots. When they find a car they desire, they secretly place an AirTag somewhere on the car that the owner might not notice, such as within the gas-fill up flap door, in a tow hitch, within a bumper or in an external electrical port.

An Apple AirTag placed within a passenger vehicle'south external electric connexion port and hidden by the port's flap door. (Image credit: York Regional Constabulary, Ontario)

At that place have been at to the lowest degree five such incidents in the area since September, says the YRP.

"We've started to notice a new trend emerging in the auto-theft industry," said Detective Jeff McKercher in a YouTube clip posted by the YRP yesterday (Dec. two). "Information technology's these tagging devices using GPS and Bluetooth technology, and they're using that to install on different vehicles that they're looking to steal."

(In a more ominous development, many women across the United States have reported being stalked by rogue AirTags, and non all the incidents can be explained as related to machine thefts.)

Afterwards that night, the auto thieves use the AirTag to track the vehicle to the owner's home and steal the car from the driveway. They break into the car using screwdrivers or similar tools, plug a mechanic's electronic tool into the automobile's on-board diagnostics port to reprogram the fundamental settings, and drive away.

"By using an iPhone, they can always tell where the vehicle's location is," McKercher added. "They can almost expect and commit their theft on their watch, maybe later on in the night, and it always gives them the location of where that vehicle is being stored at the time."

McKercher said that Lexus, Toyota and Honda crossover SUVs currently seemed to exist the most desirable for car thieves in the Toronto suburbs, along with the eternally popular Ford F-Series trucks.

The YRP never uses the word "Apple" in the public-service announcement and two related YouTube clips that were posted yesterday (December. 2). But the images and language make it pretty clear exactly what kind devices they're talking near.

"Motorcar thieves are thinking differently," begins the other YouTube clip, which almost looks like an Apple promotional video. "Typically, thieves roam residential neighborhoods (sic) looking for specific models of vehicles. Now they are roaming parking lots and leaving a tracking device called an AirTag on target vehicles. Thieves then track the vehicle using the AirTag and steal information technology at a later time."

An AirTag will start to chirp if it'due south been separated from its paired iPhone for between 8 and 24 hours. That still gives machine thieves enough of time and the chirps might not be audible over the noise from a auto'southward engine.

Your iPhone is supposed to be able to warning you when a "mystery" AirTag not paired to your iPhone comes home with you. Just that doesn't always seem to work, and people who don't have iPhones won't become those alerts.

We reached out to Apple for comment and were directed to this Apple support page that tells you what to do if you find someone else's AirTag in your holding or y'all hear chirps from an AirTag that's been separated from its owner.

To exist fair, car owners can also use AirTags to recover stolen vehicles. FoxNews.com's Gary Gastelu ran tests over the summer and constitute that AirTags were just as constructive at finding lost vehicles as car-tracking devices that can costs hundreds of dollars to install or come up with subscription fees. A unmarried AirTag costs $29, and a pack of four costs $99.

In August, Dan Guido, a digital-security researcher, told his Twitter followers how AirTags helped him recover a stolen electric scooter. But he warned that the scooter thief seemed to have noticed that at that place was an AirTag hidden on the scooter (Guido had placed one in an obvious identify, and another hidden inside the handlebars) and tried to remove it.

My scooter was stolen terminal calendar week. Unknown to the thief, I hid ii Airtags inside it. I was able to use the Apple tree Find My network and UWB direction finding to recover the scooter today. Here'southward how it all went downwards:August x, 2021

Meet more

How to lessen your adventure of AirTag car theft

Back in Ontario, the York Regional Police force offered these tips to car owners:

• Park your car in your garage if you have one, not in the driveway
• If you don't have a garage, then park the car as shut to your house equally possible
• Use a third-party steering-bike lock
• Put a third-political party lock on the OBD-Two information port
• Check your vehicle regularly for tracking devices

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom'due south Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than fifteen years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random Boob tube news spots and even moderated a console discussion at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You lot tin follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/airtag-car-thefts

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