Thesis work - Confidentiality and integrity of data in the future of the Automotive industry

Job Description

Background

The future of automotive industry is connected and autonomous vehicles. With more and more OEMs moving towards connectivity, it is expected that 90% of the vehicles by 2035 will be connected. These vehicles are using more and more software and different apps for accessibility and usability of the driver. However, this brings and increases vulnerability and threat as well to these vehicles.

Because of this, security becomes one of the big challenges in this industry. It is vital for manufacturers to add necessary defense for these vulnerabilities and threats. This defense includes protecting the electronics, communication, software, and apps against unseen threats.

One of the potential security risks includes the Ethernet and IP based communication between the internal ECUs of the vehicle, specifically between telematics gateway and the head unit. This communication could have vital information like, firewall settings, modem configuration, etc. Therefore, it is vital to secure all ethernet and IP based internal communication to and from the ECUs.

To secure the communication three basic requirements needs to be met.

• Confidentiality – Protect the information in transit
• Integrity – The information is reliable and trustworthy
• Authentication – The information received is from the correct source and vice versa

There are varieties of secure communication protocols which could help to secure the communication in transit. However, these communication protocols have some constrains and need to be considered while using it. The table below shows famous secure protocols and how they fit in the TCP/UDP model. These protocols don’t have any interoperability between them since they all operate on different levels in the TCP/UDP model. Selecting the right solution for different settings/environments can be difficult and not all solutions fit into vehicle network or configuration. Knowing the limitations and differences based on the requirements, impact on the system and network is vital.

Note: For MACSec, both on software level and physical level needs to be analyzed to offload host/OS

Application

SSH

Transport

TLS/DTLS

Internet

IPSec

Network Access/Physical

MACSec

Challenge:

• Investigate how and if possible, to use secure communication protocols for communications interfaces like Ethernet and Wi-Fi for all data in transit.
• Investigate the impact of using these protocols in the embedded system.
• Investigate what changes needs to be done in the vehicle network to make it work.
• The impact on other nodes in the network and what changes other nodes needs to adapt.
• Present Linux based solutions for each protocol which can be adapted to an ECU.
• Suggest which one is best suitable for automotive industry.