The Canadian government plans to ban the Flipper Zero (made by a company with Russian roots) and similar devices and has identified them as tools that thieves can use to steal cars.
Flipper Zero is a portable, programmable test tool that helps you experiment and debug various hardware and digital devices using a variety of protocols, including RFID, radio, NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth.
Users in the video demonstrate Flipper Zero’s ability to perform signal playback attacks to unlock cars, open garage doors, activate doorbells, and clone various digital keys.
Which suggests that @FlipperZero0 replicates my McLaren key fob and unlocks my car ???????????? @icona_p0p pic.twitter.com/0yqGIPoR1V
— Lina (@d0rkph0enix) September 25, 2022
Criminals use sophisticated tools to steal cars. And Canadians are rightly concerned. Today I announced that we are banning the import, sale and use of consumer hacking devices like Flipper that are used to commit these crimes.
– Industry Canada Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne on Twitter.
Champagne’s statement came after a national summit on the fight against car theft, organized this week by the Canadian government in Ottawa, Ontario, reports Bleeping Computer.
Criminals have been using sophisticated tools to steal cars. And Canadians are rightfully worried.
Today, I will get what will be banning the importation, sale and use of consumer hacking devices, like flippers, used to commit these crimes.
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— François-Philippe Champagne (FPC) ???????? (@FP_Champagne) February 8, 2024
According to the Canadian government, about 90,000 cars are stolen each year (or one car every six minutes), and the annual loss from theft is $1 billion, including insurance costs for repairing and replacing stolen cars. Canadian police also reported that motor vehicle theft had the biggest impact on the growth of the national Crime Severity Index in 2022.
Flipper Devices, the company that developed these devices, claims that the gadget cannot be used to hijack cars built within the last 24 years.
Flipper Zero cannot be used to steal any cars, especially those manufactured after the 1990s, as their security systems have rolling codes. Also, to intercept the original signal, you need to actively block the signal from the owner, which the Flipper Zero hardware is not capable of. Flipper Zero is designed for security testing and development, and we have taken the necessary steps to prevent the device from being used for malicious purposes.
– Flipper Devices COO Alex Kulagin. – Flipper Devices COO Alex Kulagin.
Amazon also banned the Flipper Zero from April 2023 for being a card skimming device (a type of fraud where fraudsters copy payment card information), and in March 2023 Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency began removing incoming purchases of the Flipper Zero due to its alleged use criminals
The official website says Flipper Devices is based in Claymont, Delaware, but the name of the COO prompted me to check. Linkedin The company talks about 34 connected participants who live in different countries of the world (none in the USA), but almost all of them studied in Russian higher education institutions.
