VW car owners warned hackers can unlock their vehicles

Hackers could unlock hundreds of millions of Volkswagen cars using a £30 device, scientists have warned.

Keyless entry systems for most VW vehicles, manufactured between 2002 and 2015, relied on a handful of global master keys which could be cloned, it has been revealed.

The glitch means thieves could unlock 100 million vehicles remotely and steal belongings from inside but would not be able to start the vehicle.

Researchers investigating the security flaw recovered the code for the master keys from an electronic control unit inside a vehicle and used a £30 radio snooping device to intercept a second code from a driver’s key fob.