Driving with Sharks: Rethinking Connected Vehicles with Vehicle Cybersecurity

In a public service announcement on 17 March 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation jointly with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a warning regarding the increasing vulnerability of motor vehicles to remote exploits [18]. Engine shutdowns, disabled brakes, and locked doors are a few examples of possible vehicle cybersecurity attacks. Modern cars grow into a new target for cyberattacks as they become increasingly connected. While driving on the road, sharks (i.e., hackers) need only to be within communication range of a vehicle to attack it. However, in some cases, they can hack into it while they are miles away. In this article, we aim to illuminate the latest vehicle cybersecurity threats including malware attacks, on-board diagnostic (OBD) vulnerabilities, and automobile apps threats. We illustrate the in-vehicle network architecture and demonstrate the latest defending mechanisms designed to mitigate such threats.