Kia, Hyundai drivers warned as TikTok challenge shows thieves how to steal car with a USB cable 

Brazen thieves appear to be trying out the latest TikTok challenge, which shows how you can start Kia and Hyundai cars using only a USB cable.

The Kia challenge began when US TikTok user @robbierayyy posted a video of himself starting up a Kia by pulling off the casing around the steering column and finding a port underneath to turn with the cable connector.

The TikTok user starts the car saying: ‘You don’t need a key bro … it should override it’.

‘Everyone in Japan, Australia or the middle of Antarctica, you got a Kia that’s on that, please be safe,’ he added.

The video has since been removed but it appears not before some Australian criminals learnt the trick.

Two Kias were targeted by alleged thieves as they attempted the new version of hot wiring on a Brisbane street.

Kim Gardiner normally parks her Kia, which she named ‘Sally’, in the garage but had to leave it out on the street because she and husband Bill were having concreting done.

The next morning, Ms Gardiner woke to find the back window of her new car smashed and the casing wrenched off the steering column.  

‘I felt quite violated, to be quite honest,’ Ms Gardiner told A Current Affair. 

Cameras attached to their home captured the moment two men approached the car in almost pitch black darkness.

They appeared to be using a mobile phone as a torch before smashing the back window of the Kia and running and hiding for two minutes.

Two men smashed into Kim Gardiner’s while it was parked outside her Brisbane home

When the coast was clear and no neighbours came out to check the smash, the two men are seen returning to the car with one clambering in through the back window and turning a light on inside the car.

 ‘From there you can see one of the offenders standing in the middle of the street on his phone, it’s like he’s videotaping the person inside the car or yelling out the instructions,’ Bill said.

After appearing to give up, they walk away, only to come back and try again with more light. 

Ms Gardiner’s car sustained considerable damage to the door and steering column

They were then seen casually walking away before apparently trying exactly the same trick on a Kia parked a few doors down.

The owner told Channel Nine they had the same damage as Kim’s car – a smashed window and casing torn from around the steering column. 

Bill and Kim urged Kia owners to put their cars in the garage or somewhere safe every night considering how many people might have seen the TikTok video.

The Kia hot wiring trick is also said to work on Hyundai makes

‘I would say now it has gone viral in the United States, that there will be a few more of these popping up over the next week or so,’ Bill said.

Police in the US city of Charlotte, North Carolina reported that car thefts were 30 per cent higher than was typically the case at this time of year with the majority of vehicles being Kias and Hyundais.

Although the original Kia challenge video has been removed, TikTok has asked users to report any copies that have been made.