i3 - May/June 2016 - 18

18

MAY/JUNE 2016

" VO LVO M A D E
CY B E R S EC U RITY A PRIORITY WHEN
D E V E LO P I N G
I TS SCA L A B L E
P RO D U CT
A RC H I T EC T U R E ( S PA )
VEHICLE
P L AT FO R M
T H AT U N D E R PINS THE NEW
XC 9 0 A N D
S 9 0 M O D E LS."
- J i m N i c h o l s , Vo l v o

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

Courtesy: Volvo

vehicles include Audi, Bentley, Fiat, Ford, Honda,
Jeep, Lamborghini, Porsche, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, Fiat, Honda and Volvo.
VW has incorporated connected car cybersecurity
for a while, says Sebastian Schiebe, a spokesman for
Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg, Germany. Like Tesla,
brands within the Volkswagen Group have been routinely separating vehicles' driving networks from their
infotainment networks with gateway devices for years,
he notes.
Of course, security can not be guaranteed in a
vehicle or with any other technology, Schiebe says.
And while he avows VW will continue with the
systematic development of protective mechanisms as
part of its electronic systems, he concedes that adapting cybersecurity for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-toinfrastructure communications remains a challenge
that automakers must confront.
Volvo made cybersecurity a priority when developing its Scalable Product Architecture (SPA)
vehicle platform that underpins the new XC90 and
S90 models, says Jim Nichols, a spokesman for
Volvo Car USA in Rockleigh, NJ. The SPA vehicles
are even more secure from hacking than previous
Volvo models, Nichols says. But all Volvos, even if
compromised and subject to an electronics failure,
will enable the driver to maintain control of the
vehicle, he says.
To a degree, cybersecurity also has come into focus
for semiconductor makers that supply the auto industry. In February, chip company STMicroelectronics,
in a press release, highlighted the role its new "secure
microcontrollers" play in protecting connected cars'

engine control units and gateways against
Internet-based attacks.
"If you have a central computer that
everything is flowing through, we can
monitor the traffic and detect a breach,"
says Danny Shapiro, senior director of
automotive at NVIDIA, based in Santa
Clara, CA. NVIDIA's graphics processing
unit (GPU) chips and system-on-chip
computing platforms are used by many
global automakers, including Audi, Tesla
and Volvo, for applications ranging from
artificial intelligence to advanced driver
assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving functions.
"The automaker and a company like
NVIDIA, which is really designing computer systems, (must think about) the
whole architecture of the car from a single
unified perspective rather than have a
dozen different component companies
all trying to connect things together. The
days of this decentralized, highly distributed model just doesn't work," Shapiro
says. Connected car cybersecurity "calls
for a very sophisticated and centralized
system-something like Tesla has done,"
he states.
In sum, says Roger Lanctot, associate
director at Strategy Analytics in Newton,
MA, what automakers need is called
"defense in depth"-a range of technologies that goes beyond data encryption and
intrusion detection to include tactics such
as secure software development, trusted
application recognition at the electronic
controller unit (ECU) level and code
obfuscation.
"Cars have some unique challenges"
with regard to security, Lanctot says. "It's
a holistic approach that's needed and the
auto industry is really just coming to grips
with these requirements."
http://www.NVIDIA.com http://www.volvo.com
i3 - May/June 2016

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