It doesn't share much in common with the article, but I believe this immediately because the same thing happened three times over the last two years with different people in my street. All with new and rather nice Audi models. Opened without any damage, the dashboard completely rampaged (nav, radio, airbags etc removed)
I won't be surprised if there's another, even more serious vulnerability in Volkswagen locks. The security researcher who found it probably sold it to the bad guys, totally understandable after reading how Volkswagen handles security reports.
A long time ago I heard an anecdote where some guy got locked out of his luxury BMW and called for help. A roadside assistance repairman showed up and knocked on the car in a certain spot with a certain pattern and the car unlocked. Don't know if it's true or not but it wouldn't surprise me if there were (hopefully more secure than that) undocumented backdoors on the modern models.
I won't be surprised if there's another, even more serious vulnerability in Volkswagen locks. The security researcher who found it probably sold it to the bad guys, totally understandable after reading how Volkswagen handles security reports.