PSA Warning: PAAK might leave your Mach-E (or possessions inside) vulnerable to theft

[thenew3]

Different phones. The Bluetooth signal coming out of some phones is a lot stronger than others. iPhone 15 is apparently a blaster.

I tested again this morning with an iphone 15 pro and a samsung s23u. Both can and do connect to BT from 50+ ft away and can lower/raise windows etc. But neither can unlock the door from anywhere more than 5 ft or so away from the car.

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[ArthurDOB]

This is something I had never considered. I will keep this in mind in the future. Work parking is not an issue for me as I am hundreds of feet away from my car at all times during the work day, but sitting in restaurants or shopping, or parking in the driveway are all potential issues.

 

[Mach1E]

That's interesting and you aren't the only one who reports a short range. I wonder why it differs for some. Different modules in the cars? Different antenna arrangements? Different module firmware? No idea...

I tested this last year and couldn’t get it to work unless a few feet away with FP open.

Tested this morning with FP closed and even pushing the button 10x door wouldn’t open.

I wonder if there was a change with one of those “optimizing PAAK” updates recently.

I haven’t gotten an OTA since Aug 2023

 

[garyd9]

I tested again this morning with an iphone 15 pro and a samsung s23u. Both can and do connect to BT from 50+ ft away and can lower/raise windows etc. But neither can unlock the door from anywhere more than 5 ft or so away from the car.

I can't explain it. To be honest, I'm kind of jealous. I'd love if PAAK on my car had a range of only 5 feet. Then I could leave it enabled.

 

[garyd9]

I tested this last year and couldn’t get it to work unless a few feet away with FP open.

Tested this morning with FP closed and even pushing the button 10x door wouldn’t open.

I wonder if there was a change with one of those “optimizing PAAK” updates recently.

I don't understand. Typo? I wouldn't expect the door to open when FP was closed...

 

[thenew3]

I can't explain it. To be honest, I'm kind of jealous. I'd love if PAAK on my car had a range of only 5 feet. Then I could leave it enabled.

Mine works from 10-15 feet away (roughly one car length) every once in a while. But from 5 feet away it works 90-95% of the time without having to turn on the phone screen and open the ford pass app.

 

[Ljrochon]

I phone 12. when I walk up to my car in the parking lot, the lights come on at around 20 ft. If I leave my phone in the kitchen (connected to the garage) and extra fob sits no more than 10 ft from the car, I can not open my car. And, I assure you I wish it could at those few times when I realize my phone is not in my pocket (then the heavy sigh, and the march back into the kitchen) ?

Serious question, why not just use the door code in those instances instead of walking back for the phone?

 

[Mach1E]

I don't understand. Typo? I wouldn't expect the door to open when FP was closed...

Summary- PAAK doesn’t work for me unless I open the FordPass up on my phone.

Just having the phone near the car doesn’t do anything. iPhone 13.

I always get an alert when I close the FP app:

 

[67 Stang Convertible]

Serious question, why not just use the door code in those instances instead of walking back for the phone?

1st Car with a Door Code. Just never seems to pop into the old noggin!!! Thanks for the reminder!! Now, if I could just remember the damn code

 

[Homestead]

I tested my car (2023.5 premium) since my iphone 13 pro max is normally only about 25ft away from my car which is just outside the house. Couldn't open the car. Earlier I was working outside streaming music from the phone which was in the same location in the house and I could get about 25ft beyond the car while still streaming music. When I go to the store and walk back to the car it lights up about 50ft away.
So car was easily in bluetooth range but not able to open.

 

[SpongeBad]

In most situations the BT will not be any further than a fob that can also hit 50+ feet in the right conditions.

Like putting the key fob on your head.

 

[RWG]

I have always thought the Mach e (and any other modern "connected" cars are a security risk.)

Consider this, whenever your Mach E sits in a parking lot, there are at least 3 wireless networks that provide digital access to the vehicle, ATT cellular network, WiFi and Bluetooth, they all are always on. As such, theoretically, if a hacker can get into your system, they can gain access too Ford Pass credentials and as such they can:

• Unlock your car and steal your stuff.
• Determine your home address.
• Open your garage door if they can penetrate the garage door opener system.
• Determine/analyze all of your Ford Pass account data and create a personal profile of the drivers.
• Access the map system and determine what the vehicle location is, for theft - vandalism - extortion, i.r. build a travel profile of your Mach E.
• Potentially download malicious software using the OTA network and potentially create a whole new scheme of nefarious activities.

What I don't know is:

• Can the hacker take control of the car while you are driving it. i.e. Blue Cruise, Lane controls etc. Time will tell.
• What can they do to your ATT network data?

Also, if you are sitting in a public place, using an unsecured Wifi network and access your vehicle via your Ford Pass app. you potentially can give a hacker your Ford Pass credentials account information. The hacker doesn't have to hack the vehicle in the parking lot, just your Smart Phone and Ford Pass.

What is obvious now, we are all at risk of data breaches, digital fraud, hackers, etc. and one of the most common anti-cyber crime recommendations is 2 stage authorization with a verification code sent to your phone or email. Can you imagine that hassle every-time you wanted to drive your car?

Ford is like every other company. They can "claim" their digital systems are safe, but there is no guarantee. Just last week over 15,000 US based auto dealers that used CKD software to run their dealerships was hacked and the whole system went down to extortion from the hackers.

In todays world of Cyber Crime it appears to be the reality of "when you get hacked NOT if you will get hacked".

As such I think I will pass on PAAK and just use our traditional key fobs, we have 2 and they work just fine.

 

[UncleDB]

I think this is GREAT discussion, with my personal takeaway being if I'm in situation where I'm within a reasonable distance of the car but CANNOT see it (strip clubs? pool halls?) swipe down in the top right of the phone and disable bluetooth until I'm about to leave. My phones battery will also thank me for it.

 

[DustyShades]

For me this isn’t an issue since we have a garage (also pretty safe neighborhood). However when roadtripping, I do always turn off Bluetooth on my phone while staying at the hotel so that my car is not accessible.

 

[Fixbear]

TL;DR: Enabling Phone as a Key might leave your Mach-E (or at least possessions inside the Mach-E) vulnerable to theft.

I was browsing the Mach-E manual earlier today and noticed a specific sentence that got me thinking:


That got me wondering if a long PAAK range could result in a thief stealing items from inside my car (or even stealing the car entirely!)

I decided my scenario for testing would be my car parked outside a building and my phone inside the building with a solid wall and at least 30-50ft (9-15m) of empty space between the car and my phone. (This would be a fairly common situation for eating at a restaurant, I think.) (This scenario also made it easy to test from my home by moving my car up and down the street.) For each test, the car was left locked (and it was verified locked by the side mirrors auto-folding in.) The "solid wall" is a wood framed wall with dry-wall on the interior and a faux-brick exterior filled with insulation.

I then started the FordPass app on my phone (an iPhone 15 pro max), and put my phone in standby. I put my phone down inside my house, went outside my house, walked to wherever the car was, and tried to open the car using the button on the driver side door. For each try, I would press the button no more than 3 times (waiting around 5seconds between each press) and if the door opened, I'd also try to start the car.

Results:

At 30 feet (9m) with a solid wall between the car and phone, I was able to unlock the car 5 out of 5 tries.
At 40 feet (12m) with a solid wall between the car and phone, I was only able to unlock 3 out of 5 tries.
At 50 feet (15m) with a solid wall between the car and phone, I was only able to unlock 1 out of 5 tries.

I was not able to start the car at all on any attempt regardless of distance.

---

The take-away from this is that leaving PAAK enabled could be a risk. While it seems that the Mach-E won't allow starting the car when the phone is far away from the car, it DOES allow unlocking it. Of course, different people might have different results with their particular phones. Perhaps different Mach-E's would also have different results.

For me, this test resulted in me disabling PAAK. Perhaps one day Ford will put out a fix so the phone has to be closer to the car. (Or perhaps there already is a fix out there, but my car doesn't have it.)

I do think that if a person has PAAK enabled, they should at least be wary. I keep coming back to the distance quoted in the manual: 131ft (40m.)

If you use walk-away lock, mine chirps before I get to the bumper. So, I don't see the concern. It also does not wake up till your about 40 ft from the car and there is a delay from wake-up till the doors unlock. I've even pressed the door button before it unlocked and had to press it again.

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