Canada moves to ban Flipper Zero over car hacking fears

I I told you. It looks like the government of Canada will ban the Flipper Zero, the small modular hacking device that has become popular with techies for its perverse digital capabilities. On Thursday, following a summit focused on “the growing challenge of car theft in Canada,” the country's Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry published a letter Statement on X“Criminals use sophisticated tools to steal cars… Today, I announced that we are banning the import, sale and use of consumer hacking devices, such as flippers, used to commit these crimes,” he said.

in press release The Canadian government confirmed, issued Thursday, that it will pursue “all avenues to ban devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals of remote keyless entry, such as the Flipper Zero.”

The Flipper, technically a penetration testing device, has been controversial due to its ability to hack into a large number of smart products. Alex Kulagin, COO of Flipper Devices, said in a statement shared with Gizmodo that the device cannot be used to “hijack any car” and that certain conditions must be met for that to happen:

“The Flipper Zero cannot be used to hijack any car, especially one produced after the 1990s, because their security systems have rollover codes. It also requires the owner to actively block the signal to pick up the original signal, which Flipper Zero devices cannot.” Done. Flipper Zero is designed for security testing and development, and we have taken precautions to ensure that the device cannot be used for malicious purposes.

a lot Online videos Prompt to show cars that are tampered with or unlocked via Flipper. YouTubers and TikTokers have uploaded videos where they appear to be hacking vehicle master keys quite easily using the device. Kulagin said that many of “these videos are either engagement bait or show very old vehicles” and that even “if you are able to register the signal and open it, Flipper will not be able to start the vehicle. For any modern vehicle with rolling codes, it is practically useless.” the operation.

Even if Flipper isn't the culprit for Canada's car theft problems, it's worth noting that hacking into modern cars is crucial. It's easy to know. Cybersecurity for major automakers It's terribleIt seems difficult to imagine that banning Flipper would make any serious impact on their security problems.

Flipper is already banned in Brazil and Amazon has banned sales of the device On his platform last year. We previously And he expected That Flipper will face an additional ban. Lo and behold, this seems like a big deal. Members of the tech community expressed their dismay at X after news of the ban began spreading online on Friday morning.

“My friend, this is not the solution. The car company needs to address the security of its products. Sincerely, cybersecurity experts everywhere. One X userwhich mentions his autobiography Infosec, was published.

“You can use screwdrivers to steal cars too,” another said User postedSarcastically.

“If you know anything about technology, you'll know that the fin and others are just simple ARM processors with basic sensors attached to them,” he said. Another user. “There's nothing innovative that's going to stop anything, it's just going to make it look like you're doing something. The trick of politicians everywhere is why people are fed up with you while everything else is falling apart.”

Another user just posted:

Gizmodo has reached out to the Government of Canada. We will update this story if they respond.