A partnership between Ricardo and Roke (www.roke.co.uk) is launching a vehicle ‘digital resilience assessment and benchmarking’ service to help automotive companies and Tier One manufacturers “assure the security of their products, and to ensure that they meet international cyber-security regulations currently under development, as well as existing legislation affecting customer data security”.

The partners say that with the increasing ‘sophistication’ of onboard electronics systems and external connectivity through navigation, infotainment, digital communications and dealer maintenance networks, modern cars provide a “feature base and functionality mix that would have been impossible even a few years ago”.

However, with this unprecedented increase in product complexity comes a parallel increase in the ‘attack surface’ that hackers can exploit — the potential vulnerabilities that may provide a digital gateway into the vehicle and its data.

In addition to the implications of such breaches for product and personal data security, they represent a potential safety hazard for the vehicle occupants, as well as a risk to the reputation of the vehicle manufacturer’s brand.

Current regulations already require vehicle manufacturers to prevent incidents and understand the risks of potential customer data breaches.

However, much tighter cyber-security regulations are already being prepared under the auspices of the United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe; these are expected to include both the mandatory audit of each vehicle manufacturer’s cyber-security management system, and a verification process to demonstrate that each new vehicle has been appropriately engineered, with the relevant risks identified, analysed and mitigated.

Ian Penny, Ricardo Automotive & Industrial’s commercial director (www.ricardo.com), said: “The vehicle digital resilience assessment service now being offered by the Ricardo and Roke partnership is a major step forward in helping vehicle manufacturers ensure that their existing and future products are digitally secure.”