The technology company Continental announced today that it is offering end-to-end cyber security and over-the-air software update solutions from Argus Cyber Security (Argus) and Elektrobit (EB) pre-integrated into its connected vehicle electronics products including telematics units, infotainment systems, gateways and more.
“More than 60 million connected vehicles will be sold worldwide per year by 2021”, says Wolfgang Bernhart, Senior Partner at the consultancy Roland Berger. “Automobile connectivity will allow for additional functions between model upgrades or even during a vehicle’s life cycle. That means that the automotive industry will have to deal with serious cyber security issues in order to guarantee people’s safety in a strongly automated traffic scenario. And time is short as the share of connected vehicles is increasing rapidly all over the world, making cars the next big target for cyber attacks after mobile devices”, adds Wolfgang Bernhart.
“Just as brakes are imperative for safe driving, connected vehicles require state-of-the-art cyber security as a basic feature. Therefore, we have decided to offer end-to-end cyber security solutions from Argus and Elektrobit in all of our connected vehicle electronics and as a standalone solution for third party products,” said Werner Koestler, Head of Strategy, Interior division, Continental.
Continental, Elektrobit and Argus’ cyber security philosophy is based on three critical pillars: enabling OEMs to prevent, understand and respond to cyber threats. Continental will now offer solutions from Elektrobit and Argus, providing vehicle manufacturers an end-to-end offering to secure their fleets from current and future cyber threats. To prevent possible attacks, EB not only provides consultation, but also offers security components for the application layer, hardware-specific security products, AUTOSAR basic software and security solutions for bootloader. Those components are designed for applications including secure communication, authenticated identification, secure updates and diagnostics, and are already on the road in millions of cars today.
Argus provides multi-layered solutions that offer additional state-of-the-art prevention from cyber-attacks against the vehicle as well as the ability to detect and respond to attacks in real-time with Argus Connectivity Protection installed on telematic and infotainment units and Argus Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) deployed in the in-vehicle network.
Argus Lifespan Protection (LP), an automotive security operations center, offers an additional layer of prevention, understanding and response by providing OEMs visibility into the cyber health of their fleets, analysis of cross-fleet information to generate insights into the nature of attacks when they happen, identification of emerging threats, and a rapid response to incidents by immunizing the fleet. To react as quickly as possible and install software patches to resolve vulnerabilities in their fleets around the world, vehicle manufacturers can rely on EB’s over-the-air software update service EB cadian Sync.
“Our multi-layered approach is an end-to-end offering for automotive cyber security, from the development of new products and ongoing monitoring, to the ability to resolve vulnerabilities via over-the-air updates to immunize the fleet from further attacks,” Koestler explained.
Gateway and In-Vehicle Server: Mastering Cyber Security Today and Tomorrow
Continental is making these multi-layered solutions a part of its portfolio, ensuring its components are as robustly secured against attacks as possible. “Especially for components, which build an entry point for remote attacks such as telematics units or infotainment systems, the requirements have been drastically increasing over the last couple of years. As an international automotive supplier, we see it as our duty to provide the best protection possible for our customers,” Koestler continues. In addition, Continental is also developing control units, which themselves serve as important elements in the security chain. Continental’s Gateway, for example, acts as a router within the vehicle computing network in classical distributed in-vehicle computing architectures or today’s domain architectures.
The Gateway integrates state-of-the-art security features from Argus and enables basic vehicle diagnostics and over-the-air software update capabilities via EB to monitor the vehicle’s cyber health and allow for immediate updates if needed. In essence, the gateway takes over the role as security master. For future server-based architectures, Continental is offering the In-Vehicle Server – a high-performance computing unit that acts as a network manager and communication interface. It also provides a central architectural element leveraging the full spectrum of over-the-air software updates for remote maintenance and cyber security for the entire vehicle.
With an end-to-end cyber security solution, Continental, Elektrobit, and Argus protect vehicles over their entire lifespan against hacker-attacks.
Photo credit: Continental AG
