Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) Hack

After a series of tire blowout incidents, the Federal Government stepped in and required that all modern cars have a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS).  These cool little devices work by transmitting the pressure to a sensor, which sends that data to the onboard computer. This is designed to show you when your tire pressure is too low or too high. Now, there are many more things involved in this, but this is the basics, and that is all that is needed for this post.

Of course, bad people do bad things, and this is no exception. It isn’t new, but it is now becoming increasingly common for thieves to drive along the highway and scan for these TPMS transmitters, which transmit at either the 315Mhz or 433Mhz range (depending on the brand and manufacture). Then, they manipulate that data, transmit a fake signal back to a vehicle, and claim that a tire is going flat.

The idea here is that the person who believes that their tire is going flat will pull to the side of the road and inspect it. Of course, the bad guy will follow and do bad guy things.