Car Thefts via Headlights, Other Wiring

Many modern cars, where the turn and marker lamps are integrated into the headlight, and pre LED (as LED rarely requires individual replacement of bulbs, rather the unit fails instead), have extensive labor associated with simply replacing a bulb. So how is it that thieves have access to the underlying wiring, is what I would wonder.

imho, my .02, ymmv, this is yet another one of those types of writings designed to alarm folks maybe into buying a new car lol

"Headlight Wires Provide Easy Access" doesn't pass muster

I found a YouTube showing this process, and the channel had all of 156 subscribers, and there was no way to tell if it were simply staged (hooded guys around a Toyota Rav 4, and they drive away in < 2 min.)

Possible? Why not. Likely? I'm not worried and I doubt anyone should be. If someone wants your vehicle, they can physically take it using a wrecker, they don't need to hack it.

This type of hack can be done and accomplished through any access to the vehicle wiring which yields access to the vehicle Controller Area Network ('CAN bus") . On many cars, simply the removal of the grill gets you into an area with multiple harnesses.

For an interesting read on the subject, see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-steal-todays-c...

In the market for a new car myself, I came away with the opposite impression--that it was a disincentive.