On Cyber-Security for In-Vehicle Software
Licentiate thesis, 2017

We live in a highly connected world, which brings many opportunities, but which also makes us vulnerable to attacks. Security in regular IT systems, such as desktop and server systems, has decades of active research behind it, whereas security in the automotive domain is still a relatively new topic. Vehicular systems are highly computerized: each vehicle, depending on type, brand and model, contains in the order of 100 electronic control units which govern most of the vehicle’s functions. In order to maintain traffic safety, it is therefore paramount that these systems are protected from malicious manipulation, and a natural question is how and to what extent “IT security” can be applied to automotive systems. This thesis covers two different aspects of automotive security, namely how to embed security engineering practices into the automotive development lifecycle, and how automotive characteristics influence the technical design and implementation of security measures. To this end, we develop a risk assessment framework which is well aligned with existing safety processes, since safety engineering is an integral part of automotive system design. We also investigate which typical pitfalls an automotive software developer has to be aware of to avoid the inadvertent creation of software vulnerabilities. We further identify five criteria that an in-vehicle network authentication solution needs to fulfill to be considered for practical use, and we evaluate authentication solutions for the most common automotive bus according to those criteria. Finally, we analyze the typical architecture of a resource constrained electronic control unit for possibilities of exploiting memory corruption bugs, and how techniques from desktop and server systems can mitigate the effects. We can conclude that it is possible to use adaptations of existing security solutions in automotive systems. However, a fair amount of adaptation work is needed to account for the particular characteristics of the automotive domain.

Vehicular Security

Memory Protection

Automotive Security

Memory Exploitation

In-Vehicle Network

Risk Assessment

CAN authentication

Secure Software Development

HB3, Hörsalsvägen 10, Chalmers.
Opponent: Associate Professor Stefan Axelsson, Halmstad University, Sweden

Author

Aljoscha Lautenbach

Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Networks and Systems (Chalmers)

A risk assessment framework for automotive embedded systems

CPSS '16: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Cyber-Physical System Security,;(2016)p. 3-14

Paper in proceeding

In-vehicle CAN message authentication: An evaluation based on industrial criteria

IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference,;Vol. 2017-September(2017)p. 2413-2419

Paper in proceeding

Aljoscha Lautenbach, Magnus Almgren and Tomas Olovsson, “Secure software development for automotive systems”

What the Stack? On Memory Exploitation and Protection in Resource Constrained Automotive Systems

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics),;Vol. 10707 LNCS(2018)p. 185-193

Paper in proceeding

Areas of Advance

Information and Communication Technology

Transport

Subject Categories

Embedded Systems

Computer Systems

Technical report L - Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg University: 170

Publisher

Chalmers

HB3, Hörsalsvägen 10, Chalmers.

Opponent: Associate Professor Stefan Axelsson, Halmstad University, Sweden

More information

Created

1/10/2018