As cars get clever -- bristling with computer chips and networking capabilities -- an EU-funded project makes sure that your car's data stays safe and the networks are secure from hackers and tampering.
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- Traffic engineering (transportation)
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If you ever wanted proof that we live in a computerised, data-hungry and networked world, just disassemble your car. There is more gadgetry, electronics and microprocessing power on board an average car than most people would ever image. All over the vehicle sensors gather information on engine performance, wear and tear, oil quality and tyre pressure. They can detect the first signs of a skid or roll and activate emergency systems such as electronic stability control.
'To improve traffic safety and traffic flow, many companies and research organisations are investing a lot of effort into ground-breaking research to develop vehicle communication and networking systems,' explains Olaf Henniger from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology. 'Europe is really forging ahead in car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure networking.'
Car-to-car (C2C) communication allows vehicles to 'talk' to each other to share information, perhaps about congestion on the roads or indicating their presence in fog or around blind corners. Car-to-infrastructure (C2I) communication lets vehicles connect with traffic lights, or other road infrastructure, which can help to optimise traffic flows, incident management and gather critical data about driving conditions.
But just as with any ICT system, this data and the on-board communication networks must be kept safe and secure. Data privacy extends to personal data captured by your car -- think what someone could discover about your driving skills and habits! Similarly, hackers could create havoc, and potential tragedy, if they gained control of a car's electronic systems.
The 'E-safety vehicle intrusion-protected applications' (EVITA) project was one of the earliest EU-funded research activities to really concentrate on the issue of in-vehicle-network security. 'We focused on the security of the communication networks within the car,' explains Mr Henniger, the project's coordinator, 'but we were always thinking about parallel C2I and C2C networks under development. EVITA's on-board network security would be a cornerstone for all the other vehicle-networking projects out there.'
Hard-wired security
There were many options for the EVITA partners to choose from. But after extensive evaluative studies and analysis of the security requirements, the team decided that the vehicle networks needed hard-wired cryptography. In other words, the scrambling and decoding of data would take place within a physical microchip -- called a 'hardware security module' (HSM) -- rather than via software.
One of the main benefits of using an HSM is its speed -- it can encrypt data packets almost instantaneously, whereas software often involves a slight lag phase. Any processing delay cannot be tolerated in a vehicle travelling at over 100 kilometres per hour (kmph) -- where even a 10th of a second interval could be the difference between life and death.
The EVITA team agreed on the specifications for the HSM, after looking at all the technology and protocols available and listening to the demands of the automobile industry. 'We investigated all the requirements and carried out a thorough risk analysis for all types of data transfer and connectivity within a vehicle. We specified the HSM to incorporate counter measures to reduce these risks,' says Mr Henniger.
'We realised that the automobile sector is very price sensitive, so we had to design our HSM with costs in mind,' Mr Henniger continues. 'We made sure that we did not over-specify the security requirements. We identified three levels of security: EVITA Lite, Medium and Full. The Lite version is used to transfer data from a small sensor to a central processing unit; this involves fairly innocuous data which people are unlikely to access and it does not need 'belt and braces' protection. At the other extreme EVITA Full offers the asymmetric cryptography, which is used whenever the car connects to outside networks to ensure the integrity and authenticity of messages.
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