Autonomous Vehicle

Modern and autonomous vehicles are controlled by complex distributed systems comprising a large amount of heterogeneous nodes with rich connectivity provided by internal networks and the Internet. With the exponential increase in vehicle intelligence and connectivity, security and privacy have become the main concerns for automotive systems. Researchers have shown that modern vehicles can be attacked from a variety of interfaces such as USB and wireless channels. By compromising a single control unit, a capable attacker may gain access to other vehicle units via internal communication buses, such as controller area network (CAN), and attack critical subsystems. As CAN gets interconnected with the Internet, it becomes an easy target to cyber adversaries, especially since it was never designed to handle cyber threats. This makes CAN data vulnerable to falsification attacks that lead to incorrect information delivery to users, and thus, cause them to take wrong and dangerous actions. It also allows adversaries to potentially execute malicious commands on control systems causing harmful actions (e.g. Disable brake system). Therefore, it is critically important to secure and protect smart vehicle operations against any type of cyber-attacks. We are developing a trustworthy Vehicle Information and Management Portal (VIMP) service to support smart car applications. The VIMP will make all the components and/or devices within a vehicle universally accessible from a vehicle portal that will be unique for each car or vehicle. The VIMP uses cloud and Internet technologies for communication (voice, video), entertainment, traffic monitoring, and emergencies. Furthermore, each VIMP is accessible in a similar way to the ubiquitous access to any internet website. By connecting cars to VIMP services, we can offer revolutionary new services in entertainment, communication, collaboration, and on-line monitoring that increase safety by proactively and reactively warning about the vehicle's current dangerous conditions, continuous access to field data, and on-line firmware updates, just to name a few. In addition, VIMP services can be protected against a wide range of cyber-attacks.