Secure automotive on-board electronics network architecture

This paper introduces hardware and software components for secure automotive on-board networks providing the basis for the protection of external vehicle communication. It is based on work done within the European research project EVITA (http://evitaproject.org). It provides a framework that covers cross-layer security, targeting platform integrity, communication channels, access control and intrusion detection and management. We present a modular hardware/software co-design: Hardware security modules (HSM) provide means to protect the platform integrity, to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of key material and to enhance cryptographic operations, thereby protecting critical assets of the architecture. In order to provide cost-effective hardware solutions, three different variants of HSMs have been specified: The full HSM for protecting external communication interfaces, the medium HSM for protecting the on-board communication between electronic control units (ECUs), and the light HSM for protecting the on-board communication with sensors and actuators. Application specific interfaces are provided by the software framework that interacts with the HSMs. High-level design considerations, such as least privilege design and separation principles have been followed throughout the work. We provide an outlook on deployment scenarios.