Hackers succeeded in taking control of vehicles by radio more than 15 years ago. In the meantime, the vehicles have a much stronger networking of the systems internally and externally.
A vehicle is a computer on wheels. A large number of control units and a rapid increase in requirements on the part of customers and legislators have led to a high degree of networking among the control units. For example, headlights use data from the navigation system to dim before crests or illuminate corners in good time. Brake and engine management access cameras and ultrasonic or lidar sensors to control the distance to other vehicles or trigger emergency braking. The range of comfort and safety functions is endless. Many of these functions now require vehicles to be networked with each other or with external services that provide data and information. Last but not least, OTA, the update over-the-air functionality, requires networking to the servers that provide the update.
With networking and the high volume of data exchanged via this networking, the interest in this data is extremely high. Much more serious, however, is the risk that malware or manipulated data can be played into the systems.
However, it is not as easy for users to install a virus scanner as they are used to from their home PC.
For the vehicle owner, it is also unacceptable that a security update for smartphones is only made available two years after purchase and then the risk has to be accepted or new hardware has to be purchased.
Legislators are taking account of technical developments by creating appropriate regulations. Cybersecurity training provides participants with the appropriate knowledge to understand the background of the regulatory requirements and how to implement each element of the legislation to meet the protection goal of the regulations.
