The number of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) on the road is expected to increase dramatically over the next decade. Funding and research are being poured into their development to ensure that these vehicles are not only viable, but safe.

Along with the increased popularity of CAVs, their requirement for secure information exchange capabilities is equally certain. In order to remain safe, CAVs will need to exchange information with other vehicles (V2V) and transport infrastructure (V2I) using various wireless communication methods. If CAVs cannot communicate with vehicles and infrastructure securely, it is not an overstatement to say that the safe mass-adoption of the technology would be impossible.

Nexor is part of project CAVShield; a consortium of six organisations including Honda, Toshiba and IBM. Our expertise in information exchange was sought to analyse the communication that would be needed between CAVs and supporting infrastructure and to determine the verification measures and methodologies that would be approrpriate.

To achieve this goal, we identified the possible scenarios in which a CAV’s systems could be compromised and assessed the ability of existing verification methods to mitigate these threats. Input verification on the CAV’s side of the exchange was the source of particular focus, as we deemed this the easiest link in the chain for threat actors to target thanks to its mobility and numerous points of attack.

 CAVShield and other CAV research projects will inform the proposed Zenzic Cyber Centre of Excellence, contributing to a secure CAV environment that earns public trust and keeps the UK at the forefront of the exciting developments in this new marketplace.