Software-defined vehicle fleets face a twisty road on cybersecurity

When Israel-based REE Automotive designed its P7 electric vehicle chassis, it worked from the software out: The flat vehicle chassis is totally configurable with four independent modules near each tire for steering, braking, suspension, and power train, each driven by an electronic control unit (ECU) customizable through software.

It has drive-by-wire, steer-by-wire, and brake-by-wire — and data collection as a service — giving the company the ability to tailor the vehicle to the customer’s application, but also potentially making the platform a hacker’s dream.

Securing a vehicle fleet is a major effort, requiring cybersecurity for the design and development teams, the factory floor, and the connected vehicles themselves, says Yaron Edan, CISO for the automotive technology company. Cybersecurity teams not only have to monitor cyber threats, but also manage the security of the supply chain, the operation technology (OT) in the factory, and the vehicle network used to monitor and update the platform.

“My headache, my concern, is basically divided in two: our network [which supports the creation of the platform], but that is not enough,” he says. “We need to figure out what are the threats, and monitor [for those] all day long for each vehicle through our SOC.”

Such security efforts, however, have another challenge: The success of “right to repair” efforts to open up all kinds of consumer and enterprise technology to allow customers to fix the devices that they buy. The passage of a Massachusetts law, for instance, calls for auto manufacturers and automotive-technology makers to share information and data produced by vehicles to allow consumers and third parties to maintain, repair, and even modify their vehicles.

While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) initially ruled that existing federal safety regulations preempted the laws — saying, “[f]ederal law does not allow a manufacturer to sell vehicles that it knows contains a safety defect” — the state and federal governments eventually came to an agreement over implementation: Automakers would be required to give third parties the ability to locally access data and systems to the vehicles they own, but the remote diagnostic and update networks can remain closed, the regulators ruled.

EVs Bring Great Flexibility and Risk

Whether the agreement will help companies with large fleets of vehicles, especially electric vehicles, remains an open question. Software-defined vehicles really took off with EVs — and the example of Tesla’s success — and the most significant software-based capabilities will likely remain with electric vehicles.

EV makers can build their platforms starting with initial design using software that can be updated to change the configuration and performance of the vehicles all the way through deployment and beyond, says Alex Oyler, director for North America at SBD Automotive, an auto supply chain consultancy.

The ability to effectively and quickly respond to cybersecurity events will likely remain with those manufacturers, not third parties, he says.

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