Continental subsidiary gets big lift in battle against hackers

When Continental bought Israel's Argus Cyber Security it said the hacking-preventer would become part of its software subsidiary, Elektrobit. Alexander Kocher, the head of Elektrobit said the addition of Argus helped it eliminate a crucial "blank spot" from the car to the cloud. He explained the importance of this in an interview with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Olive Keogh.

Last November your parent company, Continental, bought Israeli auto cybersecurity specialist, Argus. It is now part of Elektrobit. Why was this acquisition made?

We had a “blank spot” from the car to the cloud and in the other direction. We wanted to secure this data stream over the air. With the Argus acquisition, we have gained experience and competency in this area and have completed the chain. We are now in a position to offer end-to-end security solutions.

In what way have connected cars changed the security landscape?

When cars are more connected, criminal hackers have a bigger reach. They can gain full access to the car and even manipulate fleets, which can potentially do much more damage. For example, it would be possible to stop an entire fleet on the road. Criminals could hold the vehicle hostage and ask for ransom or manipulate the vehicle to cause a fatality. It is a really big issue and this is why countries are making laws that will be approved within weeks not years. We are already seeing initiatives whereby management will be held personally liable for ensuring the security of connected cars.

What are the biggest challenges you face in combating potential hackers?

Building the infrastructure in the right way, maintaining it over the lifetime of the vehicle – up to 12 years - and having very fast reaction times to correct any problems. Argus in particular provides us with the missing link to this last part.

Is the existing legacy infrastructure up to the job?

We need to improve it from the bottom up and combine the right technologies with the right architectures to make hacking as hard as possible. At the same time, we have to recognize that given the complexity of things having 100 percent cybersecurity is not reality.

Is the current drive to secure connected cars happening faster than you had imagined?

Yes. The changes are already very visible and we are involved in projects that are pulling things forward very quickly. Yesterday’s cars had a separate ECU (electronic control unit) for each function. In the future, this will be reduced through the use of performance controllers and it will be possible to use their processing power to abstract the functions from the hardware.

Do you think the automotive industry is moving fast enough to provide the necessary security?

The traditional industry has to catch up, but all the big technology companies are already developing solutions for use in mass production cars that are coming even before 2020.

How will it be possible to know if a hack has happened? How fast can you stop a hack?

There are different technologies available for doing this, such as intrusion detection software and anomaly detection. It monitors the communication within the car network between one ECU and another to detect anomalies and raise an alert if necessary. Then you need technology that can analyze this information very quickly to try to protect the vehicle from the attack and also fix the leak wherever it is. There is a security operation center continuously monitoring the communication between the car and the back end. The target is to stop a hack within hours when you have a well-designed system.