Securing the internet of vehicles through lightweight block ciphers

Abstract In recent years, the automotive industry has made significant investments in the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, aiming to develop technologies and services for connected vehicles that focus on user-oriented solutions, providing unique and tailored driving experiences. Nowadays, the vehicles are connected to the car manufacturer network, the road operator networks, and the Internet. Such interconnections are used for infotainment applications and driving assistance services, such as real-time HD-maps, and road safety applications. For these reasons, the concept of the Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) is increasingly emerging and, vehicles become Internet terminals exposed to cyber-attacks. In this context, the main weakness is given by the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol. This protocol, which governs the in-vehicle network, was designed to reduce transmission error problems and minimize latency times. However, it does not employ any security facility to protect the communication. In particular, one of the main issues of this protocol is that it uses unencrypted communication. Improving the security of this protocol is necessary while preserving its performance in terms of communication efficiency. This paper investigates the possibility of using lightweight block ciphers to secure in-vehicle devices such as microcontrollers, which have constrained hardware and software capabilities. The results obtained have shown that this proposal while guaranteeing a high degree of safety, has a negligible impact on the vehicle’s performance.