Over the weekend, a man who goes by the name Zach Khai Shin on Facebook parked his car via the Suria KLCC mall valet and when he wanted to retrieve the car half an hour later, the white Honda HR-V was nowhere to be found.
The owner took to social media to share his plight, saying that while the keys were with the valet staff, the car had vanished. He added that the according to the car’s GPS tracker, it was already in Subang and the police were investigating the case.
Suria KLCC has since released an official statement to explain their side of the story. The mall acknowledged that “a vehicle entrusted to the valet service was stolen despite being securely parked by the valet attendant”.
“Upon notification, we immediately launched a comprehensive investigation in cooperation with the authorities. Together with the police, we reviewed CCTV footage, which revealed that an unidentified individual entered the car and drove it away while the car key remained securely stored at the valet counter. Utilising our CCTV footage and the car’s GPS system, the suspect has since been apprehended,” the statement explained.
So, it’s clear that the car was not stolen by the valet staff, and the key was in their possession throughout. “This is an unprecedented event for our valet parking service operator, as nothing of this nature has happened before,” the mall’s statement said, adding that valet SOPs will be reviewed following this incident.
What actually happened and how did the thief get access to the car without the keys? It could have been a ‘relay attack’, a digital theft technique where criminals exploit vulnerabilities in keyless entry and start systems.
In relay theft, the thief stands within proximity of the vehicle and uses a device to relay received signals to his accomplice with a second device, which then ‘communicates’ with the key fob and gets a response from it. This fools the car’s keyless entry system into thinking that the owner is nearby, unlocking the car. Sounds simple, but it would still need pretty slick planning.
Kudos to the police and mall security team for their fast action. If relay theft was indeed how the car was stolen, perhaps the use of a Faraday box for car keys might improve valet security. These cases have metallic materials that protect them from electromagnetic transmissions, the same theory as wallets that protect credit cards from RFID skimming.
What can car owners do to protect our vehicles from these silent thieves? Nothing much unfortunately, except for having a vehicle telematics system that tracks your car’s location and shows it on your phone. Zach’s Honda HR-V likely had the Honda Connect system to help the authorities track down the car so quickly.
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Just to add even more hate, if that is possible, for Teslas. They are practically impossible to steal
‘Impossible’ just means it only takes a little bit longer to do.
That’s not true. You will find that there have been lots of cases of stolen Teslas in the US and Europe. It’s just that it is also easy to track it down unless the thief jams the GPS or the system. Knowing this, it is still being stolen all the time over there because of the thieves can get off lightly even when caught.
Lol “practically impossible” you must be one of those people who think virus only exist on PC/Android but not on Mac/ios.
I had a Hilux stolen in the KLCC basement car park many years ago (circa 2011). Funnily enough they have the cctv footage of the person exiting the car park but we were not allowed to see the footage as it is under ‘police investigation’. Ultimately just claim insurance and move on.
Nothing ‘funny’ there.
Most ‘known’ or ‘established’ organization knows very well what can be shown or shared with complainant.
What funny is that u know the footage exist without even seeing it.
Don’t you know that most valet operators in the city are owned by underworld syndicates? All it takes is a simple Whatsapp text from the parking attendants
“What can car owners do to protect our vehicles from these silent thieves? Nothing much unfortunately…”
Most car FOBs can be disabled. For eg Toyota/Perodua, you press and hold lock button, then simultaneously press unlock button twice to disable the FOB. You will see the LED blink 4 times. It’s all in the manual.
Cannot do anything eh? In EU or USA, this would have caused the national road/automotive body to pressure these brands to do a mass recall to harden the security or outright replace unsecured module.
Only in Msia where us consumers are powerless to do anything, the associations & bodies prefer to play politics, and the politicians prefer to fill their pockets with endless fancy plates sales.
We can do the old fashioned cheap way of using a highly visible steering wheel lock. They would rather find another easier car to pick on . Or wheel clamp your own car haha
There is a twenty ringgit solution. Get a steering lock. A bright coloured one. Just the sight of it on the steering wheel should be enough to discourage thieves.
it’s a classic MITM (Man In the Middle) attack. You can google it. What you can do is buy a Faraday bag for your key fob. When you wanna use, it you need to take it out. A bit of a hassle, but better safe than sorry.
The suspect is a low iq druggie who hangs around the car park after parking the car so this is unlikely to be anything sophisticated like signal booster etc.
Most likely the valet staff forgot to turn off the engine and walked away. The staff probably just press the lock button on the fob and assume that the “no key fob signal detected” chime is the door lock chime.(I don’t think you can lock the car without killing the engine first).