Are new cars secure?

By Lawrence Minnie

Cast your mind back a few years and imagine your first car or your parents’ cars, How secure were they really?

The popular movie trope of a hooded criminal walking up to a car with a Slim-Jim or piece of wire, or simply breaking the glass to get into the car and hotwire it, is actually a thing of the past – nowadays it should be a hooded criminal hacking into a car with a laptop. We have also seen the advent of signal jammers here South Africa, where criminals block or capture the signal rom your remote key to gain access to the car.

When we talk about vehicles being secure, it’s not just a door lock but rather an entire integrated security system that is very difficult to bypass.

New cars are fitted with a host of systems such as immobilisers, steering and wheel locks, real-time GPS tracking, window films, microdot technology, laser cut and Wi-Fi encoded keys, and of course the traditional alarm system.

This technology advances yearly at a pace that matches how fast criminals can adapt to it. New cars are now more secure than ever compared to the cars of 20 years ago, but criminals are constantly upping their game and coming up with new and inventive ways to separate you from your car. We are now seeing criminals with sophisticated electronic equipment boosting signals from keys inside of houses, while breaking into a car outside in the street.

Motor vehicle manufacturers, however, are keeping up the pace and are constantly developing new ways to outwit and outplay criminal elements, so your new car should stay out of the hands of a hoodie for at least a few years.