Speakers
Synopsis
Autonomous vehicles communicate with other vehicles, road users, and infrastructure, and operate within intelligent transport systems. This improves driver decision-making, road safety, and efficiency. Not all automated vehicles are connected, and not all connected vehicles are automated, but the technology should converge. The Australian Government has been working with state and territory governments, the industry and the research community to prepare for their safe deployment. Trials are underway, but automated vehicles are not yet available commercially or in general use on public roads in Australia. Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) has developed a Cooperative/Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) Readiness Strategy to prepare for the safe and effective deployment of CAVs on NSW roads. The strategy considers six priority areas, however, it is mainly focused on road networks and relevant policies, without the depth considerations of cyber threats, exposing CAVs' critical infrastructure and driver's safety.
The development of sophisticated cyber attack strategies is of critical importance to CAVs.
These strategies, such as ransomware and privacy attacks could lead to vehicle control manipulation or override of autonomous control. As harmful consequences, these are intentional collisions, theft of vehicles, and drivers' deaths. Especially when multiple CAVs are compromised simultaneously, the consequences could be devastating, causing widespread accidents and disruptions in traffic flows. Recently, an individual compromised a Jeep Cherokee's entertainment system using a zero-day exploit, hijacking wireless functions of the car, causing a risk to the driver's life.
The current gap in research on the cybersecurity of CAVs is essentially a lack of effective and flexible security measures that can keep up with evolving cyber threats. We need intelligent solutions that can protect the complex networks and systems in autonomous driving scenarios. Bridging this gap is crucial for ensuring the safety and reliability of self-driving cars, which is not only important for the general public but also aligns with government priorities for advancing secure and innovative transportation technologies.
The key security issues of CAVs are the real-time detection and mitigation of attack surfaces (i.e., vulnerabilities), and their cyber attack strategies. CAVs have unique attack surfaces exploited by attack vectors. A multi-faceted defence approach should be utilised, combining intelligent cyber defence solutions, to seamlessly safeguard the CAV's complex functions. Devising this approach will achieve interoperability and smooth communications for CAVs and their potential components.
