This is scientific American's 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intalyata. Got a minute?

Today's cars have loads of computer smarts built in, like the chips that allow you with a push of a button to unlock your car.

And as new cars move down the assembly line, automakers program those functions into

the car. They produce one car and they program a cryptographic secret in it in order to secure it against thieves.

Timo Casper, a cryptographer and engineer at the security and IT consulting firm, Casper and

Oswald.

And then comes the next car on the production line and they put the same secrets into the second car.

And then comes a third car on to the production line and they again put the same secrets into this guy and they repeat this process for millions of cars in the world.

And now millions of cars in the world share the same cryptographic secret.

Of course, this secret is not so well protected anymore because it

is in every of these one million cars and in every remote control and this is of

course a typical example of how to not do it.

And yet he says that's exactly how the Volkswagen group did do it

for many cars manufactured in the last 20 years.

Casper and his colleagues decoded that shared cryptographic secret by studying the design and operation of chips from VW Group cars and remotes.

After hacking the hardware, they were easily able to eavesdrop on and decrypt unlocking signals,

clone the remote control, and unlock cars. They presented the details August 12th

at the Usenix Security Symposium in Austin, Texas.

Casper says VW is aware of the problem,

and they're not alone.

This is not a VW bug, but this is a red line,

as we German say, through all the automotive industry.

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