Welcome to the August 2008 edition of escrypt`s Executive Newsletter.
In the last years IT security has become an important aspect for the automotive industry.
Vehicles will communicate with the outside world in order to improve traffic safety considerable. However, have you ever asked yourself what kind of security problems occur if vehicles communicate with other vehicles? Or which attacks emerge if vehicles communicate with traffic lights and signs?
escrypt is contributing essential results in European and worldwide projects to ensure secure communication and provide protected on-board systems. The first step is the security of communication between the vehicles and between the vehicles and infrastructure. Transmissions must be protected against eavesdropping and manipulation and privacy must be preserved. escrypt is working on solutions for the American CAMP consortium being a leader in this area. escrypt technology will be an enabler for a technology that will soon safe numerous lives.
An important step to provide secure applications are secure on-board systems based on secure hardware units. This basic approach will be prototypic realized in the next three years with the European Commission supported research project EVITA. In this project escrypt takes over a major part on secure on-board systems.
Please enjoy reading further information about our projects and News of escrypt.
Best regards
Kathrin Mannheims, Jan Pelzl, Thomas Wollinger
Security of vehicular communication
Safety applications in the future will be based on vehicle communication. Vehicles will broadcast safety-relevant information to enable safety applications. These applications include informing other vehicle of an emergency braking, warn vehicles of potential collisions and notify the driver about vehicles in the blind spot. The driver is warned earlier and more precise than with today`s autonomic sensor systems such as radar. Furthermore future safety applications can be supported by Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication. Traffic lights and signs will be equipped with radio transmitters and will send out safety-relevant information e.g. the length of the green phase. Further transmitters will be placed at the roadside for instance, sensors with transmitters broadcast a warning about an icy road. A commercial application is also possible. In this process the roadside radio transmitter can be used as an access point to the Internet and commercial information can be broadcasted. Typical examples include broadcasting prices of a gas station or special offers of a service area.
The application of secure communication in safety-relevant applications is essential for obvious reasons; besides correcting faulty transmission malicious attacks are identified and prevented. Furthermore, in specific applications the confidentiality of data has to be protected. On the other hand, inexpensive and robust security solutions are required, and security needs to be approached in a holistic manner: solutions have to be designed and implemented for preserving privacy, an infrastructure for the administration of the security credentials has to be designed and implemented that follows the structure of today`s administrative organizations and the security-relevant control units and sensors in vehicles have to be protected against manipulation (s. EVITA).
escrypt is working on future solutions for the CAMP (Collision Avoidance Metrics Partnership) consortium, existing of Ford, GM, Honda, Mercedes and Toyota that is supported by the US Department of Transportation. Such safety and security solutions can be regarded as a quantum leap for the safety of road traffic.
EU-Project EVITA: Trustworthy vehicle-protection for control units and communication
The European project EVITA develops protection mechanisms for electronic control units and communication devices.
In the future, vehicles will warn each other of imminent threats by exchanging information over a wireless channel as described above. The basis for such communication are secure on-board systems. IT security experts and the automotive industry develop secure hardware and software components of such a system in the EVITA project, co-funded by the European Commission. The goal of the project is to protect security-relevant vehicle components as well as the communication between different electronic control units against tampering. Otherwise forged information and counterfeited components will be injected. The overall automotive security will benefit from the results since the specification will be published as open specifications.
Cryptographic methods and secret keys will protect electronic control units and control software against theft, tampering and unauthorized cloning. At the same time the integrity and authenticity of information exchanged within the vehicle must be ensured. The basis for the security is a hardware unit similar to a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). This is a tamper-proof controller that ensures integrity of the system.
The European Commission supports the 3-years project with 3.8 million Euro; the remaining costs is funded by the project partners. The project develops a prototype for further testing and refinement. The development and testing on public roads is expected in 2014.
In this project escrypt takes over the major part in securing on-board systems. escrypt is responsible for the design and implementation of secure on-board systems as well as the design of an automotive Trusted Platform Module. escrypt also supports planning the security architecture and the necessary software.
The other project partners are as follows:: BMW Research and Technology GmbH, Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental Teves AG & Co. OHG, EURECOM, Fraunhofer ISI, Fujitsu Services AB, Infineon Technologies AG, University Leuven, MIRA Ltd., Institut Telecom/Paris Tech and TRIALOG.
More information concerning the EVITA-project is available at web site.
Further News
- 10th. Wireless Technologies Conference 2008
The 10th. Wireless Technologies Congress takes place from 23rd - 24th of September 2008 in Bochum. escrypt organizes the workshop. "Efficient Security for mobile / embedded Applications" and gives interesting talks concerning real-world topics. Please find further information concerning the Wireless Technologies Conference at the web site.
- Embedded Systems Conference 2008
The Embedded Systems Conference 2008 takes place at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts on 26th - 30th of October 2008. escrypt is presenting a session concerning "Challenges of and Solutions for Embedded Data Security". Please find additional information concerning Embedded Systems Conference at the web site.
escar 2008 - Embedded Security in Cars Conference takes place in Hamburg 18th - 19th November 2008. Additional information for the escar 2008 is available at the web page.
escrypt is a Sponsor of the Workshop on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC 2008) and the Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems 2008 (CHES 2008). The ECC workshop is the most important workshop on elliptic curve cryptography and CHES is the worldwide leading workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. Please find further information concerning these workshops at CHES 2008 and ECC 2008.
We are looking forward to your remarks and comments:
E-mail: twollinger@escrypt.com
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