Modern vehicles are essentially computers-on-wheels, operating with an average of 100 million lines of code and 60 control units. Those numbers are on the rise as automakers expand safety, entertainment, navigation, and autonomous driving features. Each of these sensors and connectivity features—from adaptive cruise control to tire pressure monitors to Wi-Fi and GPS—creates a potential opening for cyber attack.
ORNL’s Vehicle Security Center (VSC) brings together expertise and facilities from across the laboratory to address this national transportation challenge. Through the VSC, researchers are focused on assessing potential threat vectors and partnering with industry to engineer secure solutions for new vehicles before they hit the road.
“Predictive assessment is our main focus,” says Stacy Prowell of ORNL’s Cyber Warfare Research Team and director of the Vehicle Security Center. “We’ve got a team of researchers with backgrounds in computational sciences, sensors and controls, vehicle systems, and global security who are collaborating to identify threats and to build security features that neutralize them.”
The VSC’s Vehicle Security Laboratory places cyber experts and award-winning software analysis tools at ORNL’s National Transportation Research Center in close association with vehicle and manufacturing researchers.
The Vehicle Security Laboratory offers a suite of capabilities to assess cyber vulnerabilities while vehicles are in operation. It includes a full vehicle dynamometer with specialized scanning equipment (CAN communications analysis and ECU calibration tools) in a space with signal isolation, ensuring data integrity.
Capabilities of the VSC include:
- Prototyping
- Malware discovery
- Large-scale data analysis
- Vehicle security assessment for current and future vehicles
- Anti-tamper and encryption devices
- Authentication and privacy protections
- Reverse engineering embedded systems
- Vehicle-based credential generation
For more information about ORNL’s Vehicle Security Center, please contact Stacy Prowell at prowellsj@ornl.gov or 865-241-8874. — by Kim Askey