MUNICH, Germany — When cars automatically exchange informations on critical road conditions and similar topics within the context of car-to-x communication, security becomes an important aspect. An EU-funded project develops the required cryptographic technology.
IT security experts and automotive industry are cooperating within the EVITA project under auspices of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (Fraunhofer SIT) based in Darmstadt, Germany. "The project aims at developing a system that protects the security relevant in-car components — this is the basis for secure external radio communications", explained project coordinator Olaf Henninger.
According to Henninger, other activities are already under way to develop secure radio protocols such as the equally EU-funded SEVECOM project.
The project centers around the deployment of cryptographic processes and secret keys to be used in the car's ECUs and control software. With these technologies, manufacturers intend to harden the devices and the communication across the in-car bus systems against theft, manipulation and illegal cloning. The centerpiece of the technology is a hardware unit similar to the Trusted Platform Module (TPMs) in widespread use in most modern computers.
Among the project participants are BMW, Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental, Fujitsu Services AB, Infineon the Leuven university and the Institut Telecom/ParisTech. The EU spends €3.8 million (about $5.7 million) to fund the project designed for three years.
