As criminal gangs use their technical knowledge to identify and exploit the vulnerabilities in the security systems of modern vehicles, vehicle theft numbers are going up. Although there are certain precautions that you can take to decrease the likelihood of your personal vehicle from being stolen, it is impractical to apply the same security measures to your fleet.

Since you cannot apply the same painstaking measures to dozens of vehicles in your fleet, it is important to have a more feasible option in place. Over the years as the number of vehicle thefts has gone up, many a manufacturer have come up with different solutions. Fleet operators with deep pockets can pay for individual security systems on each of their vehicles. But there are more economical ways that could in certain cases provide an improved security system of your fleet.

Using something as simple as a vehicle tracker could help ensure that your vehicles are protected against thefts. In cases where theft has occurred, a vehicle tracker could increase the likelihood of vehicle recovery. There are several reasons why using a simple vehicle tracking solution is a more practical option than high-end security solutions.

Lower Costs

Vehicle costs make up a significant part of any business’ expenses that operate a fleet. Thus there is no reason to pay for and install high-end security solutions in all of your vehicles if a vehicle tracker would suffice. Depending on the type of vehicle tracker you select, you can install it wherever you want inside or even outside a vehicle. If you want certain special functions, many trackers offer the facility to add accessories. Depending on the protocol used, you can install additional accessories to have your vehicle trackers perform special functions.

Mobile Vehicle Tracking

Once you have installed trackers in your vehicles, you can connect t

Using Autowatch Ghost and Ghost-II could substantially lower the chances of your keyless car being stolen. They make up for the security gaps that exist in the keyless systems to a great extent. But despite that, they are not entirely infallible. Although they perform their functions adequately, there is always a chance of them being spotted.

Both Autowatch Ghost and Ghost-II give you the option to hide them virtually anywhere in your car. But if the car thieves spend some time looking, they can discover and disarm them easily. Once disconnected, your keyless class has no defence mechanism left. So the drivers can just drive off without ever figuring out your button combination.

This does not discredit the benefits of the Autowatch Ghost and Ghost-II systems. However, it does show that no security system is entirely free from flaws. While the flaws shouldn’t keep you from these devices, you must consider going an extra mile just to be safe. The outside chance that car thieves might discover Autowatch Ghost and Ghost-II is too great to ignore. For this reason, you should explore various options to ensure the safety of your vehicle.

One of such options is the Autowatch Shadow. The defence mechanism that Autowatch Shadow employs is very hard if not impossible for the car thieves to bypass. Car thieves use the radio frequency to work out the path to the immobilizer such as the Ghost and Ghost-II. Even though Autowatch Shadow connects to the same CAN network, it doesn’t use radio frequency. This makes it hard for car thieves to find the route to the immobilizer.

On top of this, unlike Ghost, Shadow has an internal immobilizer relay. In most cases, the relay remains unused. But if Autowatch Shadow is removed, the relay activates and prevents the vehicle from starting. This keeps the car unmoved even if the car thieves have worked out the immobilizer location.

Autowatch Sha

Despite the high number of keyless car thefts, few are willing to return to the traditional method of ignition. With keyless cars, you don’t have to worry about where you left your car keys. All you need is a fob and you are set. Despite the high number of thefts of keyless cars, they are still popular.

Regardless of the car theft statistics, the sales of keyless cars keep going up. Some car owners who live in high crime areas even have to pay higher insurance premiums. Such a compromise shows that keyless cars are here to stay. One reason for that is the protection solutions available in the market. Even though security gaps exist in the keyless car systems, there are market solutions that minimize them.

So rather than trusting in the infallibility of car manufacturers or having faith in the ignorance of car thieves, responsible car owners are investing in car protection systems. Wherever possible, these protection systems reduce the likelihood of car thefts and increase the chances of vehicle recovery. It brings peace of mind to the keyless car owners and reduces the threat posed to their vehicles. Certain cases even allow them to negotiate a lower insurance premium.

One of those vehicle protection systems is the Autowatch Ghost-II. After basic installation, it allows car owners to set a button combination. Before the ignition, the driver must enter this combination. Without it, the vehicle will not start even if the fob is present inside it. It strikes right at the heart of most common methods of keyless car thefts.

Usually, car thieves use a relay device to pick a signal from the fob inside your house. Once they have found the signal, it is relayed to another device placed near the car. The car systems are thus fooled into believing that the fob is nearby. As a result, the car lowers its’defences and gives car thieves unfettered access. After that, they just need to start the car

Even though the overall percentage of car thefts has gone down significantly in the UK since the 1990s, West Midlands is facing a car theft epidemic. In a recent set of figures, the police and crime commissioner revealed that the number of car thefts in West Midlands has tripled since 2015. The Commissioner was blunt about what he blamed for such a startling rise in car thefts—keyless cars.

Ever since the popular manufacturers began implementing the keyless feature in their cars, security experts have expressed concern over the security gaps that exist in the technology. It has become ever so easy for car thefts to order electronic kits online and use them to hijack keyless vehicles. Due to the high rate of theft incidents, some insurance providers now charge higher premiums for keyless cars. But fortunately, there are vehicle trackers available that could protect keyless cars from theft incidents.

Tracker Vantage S7 tracker has features that could prevent keyless cars from being stolen. In cases in which they do get stolen, Tracker Vantage S7, if installed professionally, has built-in features that could help the police recover your vehicle promptly.

Merger of GPS and GSM Technologies

Tracker Vantage S7 combines GPS and GSM technology, which provides better location coordinates. While the GPS system uses the satellite system to pinpoint the location of your vehicle, GSM technology uses the signal strength and triangulation to provide location data with reference to the base station. The combination of GPS and GSM means that even if your vehicle is taken to a remote location, Tracker Vantage S7 will keep sharing the location data, helping the Police recover your stolen vehicle.

Backup Battery and Motion Alerts

Tracker Vantage S7 comes with a backup battery that keeps the vehicle tracker o

As automotive companies look to incorporate technology to make their cars more convenient to use, the security gaps that exist in modern devices have only become more apparent. Features such as keyless ignition have become a liability, far from the selling points that automotive companies thought they would be.

Which?, a popular consumer group based in the U.K. recently released their research exposing the security flaws in the keyless system that make some of the most popular vehicles vulnerable. Ford Fiesta, Ford Focus, Nissan Qashqai and Volkswagen Golf were all found to be at risk.

How are keyless cars stolen?

One way keyless cars are stolen is by relaying the signal from the fob to the vehicle. In this case, thieves do not need to have physical access to the fob or the key. They can stand outside the home and try to detect the signal from the fob. Once they find the signal, they bounce that signal off to another device placed close to the car. Once the car detects that signal in close proximity, it lowers its’ defences giving car thieves unfettered access to the vehicle.

Keyless systems, which work on the principles of electronic relays, can easily be mimicked to unlock the cars even in the absence of the real fob. In the newly released research report, ADAC, a German Automobile club, attacked keyless systems on 237 vehicles in total. They found that only 3 vehicles were secure while all remaining vehicles were vulnerable to some extent.

The three cars that were found to be secure had the same manufacturer—Jaguar Land Rover. It shows that the solutions to address these security flaws do exist in the market but despite that, most automobile companies keep putting insecure vehicles out that give car thieves an ever-increasing buffet of cars to choose from.

Car The

In the past decades, vehicle trackers were exclusively thought of as a method of protection against car thefts but that has now changed. It is a fallacy to assume that just because a vehicle is ‘big’, it doesn’t need a tracker and that merely its’ size would suffice to protect it against steals. Trackers these days serve a variety of purposes to not only ensure a vehicle’s physical safety but also monitor the engine performance, fuel efficiency, and on-road habits of the driver.

Costs Control

Keeping track of your costs and minimizing them is a cornerstone of a successful business but it is especially true for transportation companies. According to some studies, almost 1/3rd of a vehicle’s total annual cost goes to fuel charges so any forward-thinking entrepreneur would want to minimize it as much as possible. By installing HGV trackers in your vehicles, you can keep track of the routes the drivers take to analyze them to work out a shorter route for any future commutes.  It can also help you keep a tab on your vehicles’ CO2 emissions, which could give you an idea when they might be in need of servicing that will restore their fuel-efficiency. In certain jurisdictions, maintaining fuel-efficiency that reduces carbon emissions to a minimum might even hold tax benefits that lower the burden on your books. Using readings and estimates from HGV tracking does not only give you near-perfect emission evaluations but they also give your claims more credibility at the tax office.

Drivers’ Evaluation

Evaluating an employee’s performance is easy if he works in the same building you do but in a transportation business, drivers work on the highways delivering goods and consignments. To evaluate their performance, a high goods vehicle tracker is the only option available. It can record the drivers’ speed, the routes he took, and the duration and location of each of his stop. Even if he is not ge

With the rates of car thefts going through the roof, it is ever so essential to install a car-tracking device in your vehicle. But with so many products in the market, how does one know which one to buy? From costs to the feasibility of installation to ease of use, there are a number of things to consider before you pick a car-tracking device.

There can be no ‘one size fits all’ guide to select a tracker. Your choice will depend on the kind of car you drive, the purposes you use it for, and the areas you travel to. But considering the following will ensure that you don’t regret your purchase.

Can it track remote locations?

If you have a transportation business and make deliveries to remote parts of the country, it is vital that your car-tracker cover those areas. Failure to do so will keep you from knowing the exact location of your vehicle. Using such a tracker, you can even allow your customers to track their deliveries in real-time. To protect your delivery trucks and their contents, you should make a compromise on power requirements of the device if you have to in order to protect them from theft.

Does it have traffic info?

If you are a businessman or have an important job, getting caught up in traffic and arriving late at your workplace could be detrimental to your career. For those who value every minute of their day, it is important that their tracking device alerts them of traffic jams and accidents so they could take the alternative route and arrive at their destination in time.

Does it store data?

There are car-trackers available that work like USBs and display stored information upon being connected to a computer. For businesses that use vans and trucks to provide services, costs of commute could be tax-deductible. An efficient car-tracking device that stores data about each of the trips your vehicles makes

Thanks to the keyless technology, car thieves are no longer breaking into the vehicles. The figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that instances of vehicle theft went up by over 50% in the last year compared to the year before.

Where just a decade ago, criminals needed to break into the vehicle through a smashed window or a locked door, now they are simply unlocking the door through gadgets and devices purchased through eBay and Amazon. In a lot of cases, thieves use relay boxes that can be bought online to transmit signals from the fob to the vehicle to fool the system into thinking that the fob is in close proximity of the car. The system thus automatically unlocks the car and criminals either steal the valuables placed inside the car such as laptops, phones, jewellery etc. or they just drive off in the vehicle. In instances when the vehicle is not stolen, and only the valuables are missing, it could take car owners days and weeks to realize that items from their vehicle have been stolen, and the figures released by ONS don’t even account for that as a significant number of these car owners don’t even report the thefts to the police since they feel that it’s a little too late.

It is not just the high-end automobiles such as Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, and Range Rovers that criminals are targeting. Low-end vehicles such as Fiestas are also on the criminals’ radar, which further substantiates the claim that criminals are also interested in contents placed inside the cars as well as the cars themselves. Although the ‘smash and grab’ cases went down, the overall vehicle-related theft went up from 796,000 in 2016 to 929,000 in 2017 due to the vulnerabilities in the keyless technology.

According to the ONS figures, car thieves are abandoning the past tactics of smash and grab and using lockpicks to enter vehicles; they are keeping up with the modern technology. Although the overall car thefts have fallen since 1995, the transit

While advancements in vehicle-systems have certainly made our lives easier, huge gaps in security remain to be filled. Experts argue that over the last 2 decades, the technological advancement in auto-industry has been so rapid that not enough time was spent on addressing security fissures. As a result, the focus of the industry has been on introducing new features as opposed to improving the security aspects of features that already exist.

By exploiting these vulnerabilities in car-systems, thieves are able to make off with the vehicles without so much as making a noise. This is what happened to Uraib Asif of Greater Manchester. After a long day at work, Mr. Asif drove home in his keyless BMW, flung the keys on the nearest table and went straight to bed. An hour later, his father who had noticed that the car was no longer parked outside their home awakened Asif. He called the police and let them know that his car had been stolen. As if losing a £17,000 vehicle wasn’t stunning enough, the CCTV recording showed that the thieves were able to pinch the car in less than 90 seconds. To Asif, this seemed very remarkable and he expressed his surprise in the following words: “It took them minutes to open the car and drive off with it and we didn’t know about it.”

So how did the crooks pull it off? Asif’s car was a keyless BMW, which means that unlike the traditional cars that require you to insert and turn the keys to unlock them, these electronic keys unlock the doors automatically when the keys are in close proximity of your car. The keys continuously transmit signals that the car picks up and uses those signals as an automatic command to unlock the doors. By Asif’s account, he left his car keys on the table, which was very close to the front door. In the CCTV footage, one of the thieves is seen waving a backpack in front of the door, while the other one stood close to the vehicle. The backpack contained a transmitter that capture