UK Government Seeks Stricter Guidelines for Smart Cars

The UK government released comprehensive new guidelines on Sunday aimed at improving the cyber security of Internet connected and autonomous vehicles.

Smart vehicles have the ability to access driver’s maps and travel information, but the government is concerned that these connected vehicles could be targeted by cyber criminals to access personal information, steal cars that use keyless entry systems, or even worse, take control of technology for harmful reasons.  

The 8 principles were developed by the Department of Transport and Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) and include security to be “owned” by the board; extended to the supply chain; maintained over the lifetime of systems; achieved using defense-in-depth strategies; and ensure systems can withstand hacking attempts and still function.

Martin Callanan, a minister in the Department for Transport, claims, “Our key principles give advice on what organizations should do, from the board level down, as well as technical design and development consideration.”

These new guidelines will ensure engineers are designing smart vehicles with protecting against cyber security threats at the forefront of development. In addition, the guidelines include making the systems able to withstand receiving corrupt, invalid or malicious data or commands, and allowing users to delete personally identifiable data stored on a vehicle's systems.

Most importantly, manufacturers must come up with plans for how to maintain and support the security over the vehicles lifetime.

Protecting the security of any smart vehicles network is of paramount importance. With control over the network, hackers are able to gain full control of the vehicle to control things like the cars windows, horn, windshield wipers, and more alarming elements like the vehicle speed and breaks. Manufacturers from must develop these smart vehicles literally expecting to be attacked by hackers, and design the vehicle from the ground up able to withstand these attacks.

Read this article on Reuters