[Chhanda Das]

Theft prevention for your Creta

Theft protection in a vehicle is as much the responsibility of the car manufacturer as is the responsibility of the owner. Most owners do not take the necessary precautions to protect their vehicles and that is why even high-end luxury vehicles get stolen despite having some of the best anti-theft protection systems.

Here are a few tips, tricks and precautions that we can follow to prevent our Creta from being stolen :-

1) All Creta have an engine immobilizer system and some Creta have a burglar alarm by default. If the individual Creta has a burglar alarm by default, it is the owner's responsibility to check if it is active and get its sensitivity adjusted as per individual requirements free of cost at any Hyundai ASC.

2) The owner should also avoid staying away from the vehicle as much as possible if the car has gone for servicing, customization, etc whether at the ASC or at aftermarket stores but especially at aftermarket stores.

3) The owner should be on the constant lookout for any suspicious activity near the car especially involving any electronic gadget.

4) The owner should insist on getting the barcoded sticker removed from the rear left window glass area as soon as possible preferably before delivery itself. If you have not done this yet, please do it right now. The reason is that this sticker contains extremely sensitive and private information like keycodes which can be misused to delete the original keys, make duplicate ones or make an entirely new set of keys. You can see a real-life example of this sticker being misused in the video below.

5) Please make it a habit not to use the buttons on the smart key for locking and unlocking your car. Instead, please use the button on the driver's door handle. This is because a car's keys work on radio frequencies which have a longer range compared to the near-field communication or NFC - like technology used by the button on the door handle. Having a longer range means that potential thieves can copy the signal from a distance but they have to be very close to the key to copy the signal if the button on the door handle is used. This is because the NFC - like technology used in the Creta works only if the key is within a very small radius from the sensor on the door. This drastically increases the chances of a potential thief getting caught red-handed.

6) You can use a faraday-cage like pouch or wallet to keep the smart key safe from relay hacking attacks.

7) Please get a GPS tracker installed but do not install it in the obvious spots like the OBD2 port, engine bay, below the dashboard, etc. Please choose a more uncommon and concealed location. Some GPS tracking devices have an inbuilt battery backup for days and also allow for the car to be remotely shut down through the internet. You can also consider adding dashcams or other independent surveillance systems to your Creta preferably with alarms and internet connectivity so that it can notify you through your smartphone in case of any suspicious activity.

8) Please get HSRPs or High Security Registration Plates installed if you have not done so already. This is because government agencies often find it easier to track vehicles through surveillance footage if cars have HSRPs installed.

9) When parking your car, please turn the front wheels a little towards any side before turning the engine off and use the handbrakes or parking brakes. Also park with the front of the car facing a footpath or wall with nearly zero gap at the front. This prevents your vehicle from being towed away by thieves easily.

10) You can use various mechanical locks like wheel locks, lug locks, steering locks, pedal locks, combination steering-pedal locks, etc as well. But please do not use gear locks and parking brake locks because installing them properly requires drilling the chassis and that constitutes an RC violation which is illegal. Moreover, drilling the chassis increases the chances of rusting drastically and hence gear locks are absolutely not recommended unless they are custom made specifically for the car.

11) If your car is out of warranty, you can explore the possibility of adding a kill switch or kill switches to some critical components in your car so that no one other than you can gain access to your car.

Disclaimer : All of the above are applicable on most modern cars irrespective of the manufacturer and not just to a Creta alone. I mentioned the Creta specifically since it is the primary topic here and I copied the above from my own Facebook post for the car. Also, I, myself, am an owner of a first-generation Creta.

Always assume that there are thieves watching you. So think like a thief and take necessary precautions
PLEASE BE SAFE AND DRIVE SAFELY

Video Credits :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD8LAY8tSEw

[adisan]

A classic example where technology is introduced to help people, but puts them to much trouble. Would owners be able to relax or focus on their other tasks after parking their cars equipped with these features?

[curious.yash]

Originally Posted by Josh

Hidden GPS can also be scanned by thieves?

Technically Yes, but I don't think thieves use such devices to scan GPS devices.

Originally Posted by Chhanda Das

Theft prevention for your Creta

5) Please make it a habit not to use the buttons on the smart key for locking and unlocking your car. Instead, please use the button on the driver's door handle. This is because a car's keys work on radio frequencies which have a longer range compared to the near-field communication or NFC - like technology used by the button on the door handle. Having a longer range means that potential thieves can copy the signal from a distance but they have to be very close to the key to copy the signal if the button on the door handle is used. This is because the NFC - like technology used in the Creta works only if the key is within a very small radius from the sensor on the door. This drastically increases the chances of a potential thief getting caught red-handed.

Hi Chhanda, I Agree with all of your points but I need to add something to this, Keyfobs won't have NFC instead they use RF and LF. When the keyfob is near to the vehicle, It will continuously send a signal to the vehicle back and forth to activate the button on the door. So, it doesn't matter whether you use the keyfob button or door button, the signals are getting transmitted via RF (Which can be captured easily). I have tested this theory by creating a signal reader device.

Every time the key sends a new code to the vehicle just like an OTP so, even if someone captures a signal, he won't be able to use it. But there are ways to generate/predict the next code as vehicle manufacturers use a similar sequence for creating a new code.

[Chhanda Das]

Originally Posted by curious.yash

Keyfobs won't have NFC instead they use RF and LF. When the keyfob is near to the vehicle, It will continuously send a signal to the vehicle back and forth to activate the button on the door. So, it doesn't matter whether you use the keyfob button or door button, the signals are getting transmitted via RF (Which can be captured easily).

As I mentioned earlier, the keyfob of all Creta have an NFC-like technology in them. However, that does not mean that it is indeed NFC. I mentioned the NFC-like technology specifically because a keyfob without a battery in it is still enough to open a locked Creta if the keyfob (without the battery) is within a few centimetres of the button on the door. NFC does not require the presence of a source of electricity in both sender and receiver of the signal unlike both RF and LF. NFC can work if any one of either sender or receiver has a source of electricity. I made the contents of my post after extensive consultations with professors of Hyundai colleges after meticulously going through the service manuals for the Creta.

Originally Posted by curious.yash

Every time the key sends a new code to the vehicle just like an OTP so, even if someone captures a signal, he won't be able to use it. But there are ways to generate/predict the next code as vehicle manufacturers use a similar sequence for creating a new code.

You are absolutely correct about the randomization of a new code but this process is useless if the thieves can crack/predict it anyway. In summary, it is better to strike at the root of the problem by not letting anyone capture the signal since we can both agree that it can be used to unlock the car and bypass the immobilizer. That is why I mentioned about the Faraday cage in my earlier post. Sadly, there is no stopping a determined thief but, as car owners, we need to make it as difficult for them as possible

[mufeez1234]

Originally Posted by Ethnicul

For KIA, its clearly written in this sticker that it should be removed before delivery.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the significance of removing the sticker?

[Ethnicul]

Originally Posted by mufeez1234

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the significance of removing the sticker?

I dont know how significant it is. Saw this while reading through some articles online.

[kunal031]

As thieves can reprogram/bypass or disable immobilizer, best way to avoid it smartly remove one of terminal from OBD (on board diagnostic) connector and tuck it behind so that laptop or cheat devices will not be able to establish connection.
Of course mechanical devices will also help.

[tbppjpr]

There was time when car owners used to look for electronic modifications and accessories to automate few of the functions in their new cars. Are we approaching in the era when car owners will start looking for undoing some of the factory fitted e-controls which are already overdone to the core? Maybe soon we start seeing threads asking suggestions for installing manual locking mechanism or modifying the keyless start-stop into the old school ignition etc!

I remember one such incident with Hyundai i20 years ago when the driver got out for street food where thieves were waiting. They immediately got in the car and managed to start it since it can be started if the key is within a certain range. Though I don't have any further info if the car stopped after certain distance and got recovered or not. I think i20 was the fist car in the mass segment that time which introduced the engine-start stop feature.

Wait, driverless cars are also coming for the dumb drivers who keep their brains occupied with smartphones all the time, even while driving. And those cars can be controlled with the smartphone like how they are controlled in the video games, easy recipe for hackers!

[atnyia]

What's the point of keyless operation if it makes cars easier to steal? This should have been non-negotiable if car manufacturers had priorities in the right place.

As an engineer, I find it frustrating that so-called enhanced safety and comfort is actually making the job of carjacking easier, not harder. Why should people need to install additional, ungainly-looking steering/gear/pedal locks?

It's a damn fail, dear car manufacturers!

[pandabear]

Looks like mystery of vanishing cars solved:

His gang rose to infamy after mastering the art of dismantling cars in 15 minutes flat. It is believed that even if it took 3 hours to get a car from NCR to Meerut, in the 15 minutes after that, it vanished without a trace. National Highway 58 was the lifeline of Haji Galla’s operations.

The profitable components of the cars were retained and sold in shops, while others are “transplanted” into other vehicles. Galla, 70, and his four sons have been running this illegal yet extremely lucrative car-breaking business for decades.

Source:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/87264645.cms

[CarNerd]

I found this video about a Creta being stolen in Delhi. The ease of theft is making me uneasy. I still don't understand why carmakers are not using biometric security systems for all cars.

[CEF_Beasts]

Definitely not the first time that a Creta is being stolen. Colour being targeted is usually white only!

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...8-minutes.html (Creta stolen in 8 minutes)