The automotive industry faces its own set of challenges when it comes to ensuring cybersecurity and implementing the best practices of safety. It’s not the only industry facing difficulties, as the advancement of technology and development of so many different IoT devices is leaving cybersecurity legislation behind.

Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects that the automotive industry needs to secure is connected cars. The trend is on the rise, with Tesla automobiles and their competitors taking over the market. Let’s have a closer look at IoT security and connected cars:

Technology makes our lives easier, which is why we adopt new things so quickly. However, we don’t always think about safety. Thanks to how convenient they are, we’re starting to use connected cars more and more — but are we doing it safely?

Autonomous and semi-autonomous cars certainly provide a more enjoyable commuting experience. Furthermore, they’ve been made to reduce the number of accidents and make traffic safer for both drivers and pedestrians. It’s safe to predict that connected cars will only be enriched with more features, with their use increasing until they become a part of millions of lives.

Everything in a connected car is placed there to make our lives a little easier when commuting. There are infotainment systems, wireless internet, and the ability to perform Over The Air updates to the Engine Control Unit. Furthermore, connected cars send information and feedback to the manufacturers and maintenance workers to keep improving. But how safe are all of these systems?

Potential threats can be quite serious, even deadly. All of these IoT points of entry pose a privacy risk — for example, it would be possible for a cybercriminal to learn the driver’s habits, routine, and where they go. It could provide them a way to track the driver.

However, there’s also a physical threat as well, as it is possible to overtake the car entirely and control it from a remote location, which could cause an unprecedented amount of damage. Other potential threats, such as entertainment system hacking, pale in comparison.

To ensure the safety of connected cars, we need to develop systems that can fight these threats. Alternatively, we could also implement practices of cybersecurity to make the IoT devices in connected cars inaccessible to cybercriminals. That can only be accomplished by enforcing safety resilience and security to be integrated in regulation that make it much more difficult for cybercriminals to compromise IoT devices.

With the technology of the automobile industry putting everything they have into IoT and creating connected cars, it’s more important than ever to look at their safety. Cybercriminals have many potential entry points to exploit and ways to put people in real danger.

If we wish to overcome these cybersecurity challenges in the best way possible, we need to work on creating better practices for IoT developers and manufacturers so we can ensure the cybersecurity of all of our devices.

However, the automotive domain could benefit significantly from setting up a domain specific Security Assurance Framework, ensuring security and safety by design and making end users safer and propelling the progress of the entire industry.

Connected drive could be last drive !