The Connected Vehicle

The connected vehicle is a vehicle designed with direct access to the Internet, enabling automated links to all other connected objects, including smartphones, tracking devices, traffic lights, and other motor vehicles. The vehicle can now be considered a connected mobile computing platform.

Cyber security of connected vehicles is one of the biggest issues facing manufacturers today. Security is expected to become ever more critical and will start dominating safety and security telematics in the future.

Security becomes an even bigger concern with autonomous vehicles, and even more so with driverless cars, in which software and connectivity plays a much bigger and more critical role for the safe driving of vehicles.

These are the Facts

Multiple channels of vehicle connectivity increases the attack surface
Personal data is increasingly available in vehicle networks making it an attractive target for cyber-criminals
Complexity is the worst enemy of security — vehicles have over a 100 million lines of code and over 70 electronic control units (ECUs)
Inconsistent security measures across vehicle functions exposes weak points
Security is not integrated into the development process but is treated as an add-on
These are real-time mission critical and safety applications with hard deadlines where failures must be dealt with immediately

The Most Common Connected Vehicle Security Issues

Insufficient authentication/authorization
Lack of encryption/data integrity
Insecure interfaces in vehicle networks
Inconsistent security measures across vehicle functions exposes weak points
Insecure software/firmware
Inadequate software protection
Privacy — protecting privacy of personal information
Protecting data in and out of vehicular systems

Why is Connected Vehicle Security Difficult?

Integrating security with safety and usability goals
Non-standard protocols and buses
Resource constraints in ECUs — Limited power consumption, processing power and memory; not much processing power for security
Cost constraints — An increase of $1 per ECU: 100 ECUs and 1,000,000 cars = $100 million in revenue loss
Lifetime of the solution — Vehicles live 10-15 years — Add development time and overall life cycle can be as long as 20–25 years
Real-time constraints in addition to fault tolerance and dependability aspects
As devices and systems increasingly communicate, verifying trust becomes a fundamental problem; protecting functions that require multiECU interactions and data exchange
Who is responsible for the security for the overall vehicle?

How Can TrustPoint Innovation Help?

Key Problems and Challenges in Securing the Connected Vechicle	TrustPoint Innovation Solutions
Systems usually not built with security in mind upfront — Integrating security needs with security, and usability goals	Design In Trust leveraging TrustPoint Innovation engineers’ security expertise during the design phase
Protecting functions that require multi-ECU interactions and data exchange; as devices and systems increasingly communicate, verifying trust becomes a fundamental problem	Enable Trust via TrustPoint Innovation’s security and cryptographic software toolkits to ensure end-to-end trust points are established and maintained
ECUs and on vehicle processors are cost and resource constrained — Limited power consumption, processing power and memory	TrustPoint Innovation’s security and cryptographic software toolkits utilizes strong and efficient ECC that is optimized for the smallest of embedded devices
Large number of vehicles; many ECUs per vehicle; and long service life combine to make managing and maintaining security difficult	Manage Trust using TrustPoint Innovation’s Certificate Authority, an IoT specific PKI solution that ensures end to end trust points are maintained throughout the product life cycle. Our solutions also solve the key management issue and initial provisioning of security in devices within vehicles