SoK: Stealing Cars Since Remote Keyless Entry Introduction and How to Defend From It

2025-05-05

AI Summary

Frequent security threats—including relay attacks, RollJam, and novel API vulnerabilities—plague Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) and Passive Keyless Entry and Start (PKES) systems. To address this, this paper adopts a Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) methodology to construct, for the first time, a comprehensive security knowledge framework spanning protocol design, vendor implementations, adversarial practices, and deployment ecosystems. Leveraging protocol reverse engineering, technical documentation analysis, real-world case studies, and security posture modeling, we systematically trace the historical evolution and shifting attack surfaces of RKE/PKES. Our analysis identifies cross-layer systemic vulnerabilities: weak authentication at the protocol layer, side-channel leakage in implementation, and inadequate key management in deployment. The outcomes include a structured risk taxonomy and an actionable defense roadmap—providing both theoretical foundations and practical guidance for automotive OEMs’ security hardening and academic research into deeper system-level protections.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Security
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Knowledge Engineering
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Model-Based Reasoning

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems

Abstract

Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) systems have been the target of thieves since their introduction in automotive industry. Robberies targeting vehicles and their remote entry systems are booming again without a significant advancement from the industrial sector being able to protect against them. Researchers and attackers continuously play cat and mouse to implement new methodologies to exploit weaknesses and defense strategies for RKEs. In this fragment, different attacks and defenses have been discussed in research and industry without proper bridging. In this paper, we provide a Systematization Of Knowledge (SOK) on RKE and Passive Keyless Entry and Start (PKES), focusing on their history and current situation, ranging from legacy systems to modern web-based ones. We provide insight into vehicle manufacturers' technologies and attacks and defense mechanisms involving them. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive SOK on RKE systems, and we address specific research questions to understand the evolution and security status of such systems. By identifying the weaknesses RKE still faces, we provide future directions for security researchers and companies to find viable solutions to address old attacks, such as Relay and RollJam, as well as new ones, like API vulnerabilities.

Problem

• Analyzing security vulnerabilities in Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) systems.
• Bridging gaps between research and industry defenses against RKE attacks.
• Providing future directions to address both legacy and emerging RKE threats.

Innovation

• Systematizes RKE and PKES knowledge comprehensively
• Analyzes attacks and defenses from legacy to modern systems
• Identifies weaknesses and future security research directions