Wireless software management offers a huge potential for developing new businesses and markets for the automotive industry. Prerequisite for the success of this future technology is the comprehensive protection of the transferred data against manipulation and unauthorized access. To achieve this ESCRYPT and Redbend will present their joint secure OTA Software Management Solution for automotive at JSAE Congress in Yokohoma in May and at Automotive Detroit (USA) in June.
Waltham, Mass. – May 20 – Future electronic systems will define the majority of innovations in the automotive industry whereby a significant proportion of these innovations will be mapped in software. Therefore software plays a pivotal role in the implementation of automotive future technologies that promise increased safety and comfort, reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions. This future development offers a lot of new attractive functionalities to the vehicle owner like software upgrades and updates for the engine control units, chassis and telematics unit.
The business value of automotive software will increase by 50 percent by 2020*. That is why it is essential for car manufacturers to manage the software during the entire life cycle of the vehicle efficiently and above all – securely. Here automobile manufacturers are increasingly opting for wireless update technologies using air interfaces. Not only will this option reduce operating costs (including warranty costs and costs for possible recalls), but it will also open up new business models, providing vehicle-related software management services.
With the possibility of remote software updates the automotive industry is facing new IT security challenges. It is necessary to ensure that remote control and interaction is secured to prevent unauthorized access to all relevant vehicle systems. This is precisely what the joint solution of ESCRYPT and Redbend guarantees.
The ESCRYPT security solution is based on state-of-the-art cryptographic key management and perfectly aligned security components for the embedded device. The vehicle’s software update is protected via digital signatures and optional with encryption. The protected software package is sent to the device over-the-air where the ESCRYPT embedded component verifies that the software has not been modified and optionally decrypts it before writing to memory.
“The benefits of new secure OTA software management are obvious,”explains Thomas Wollinger, Managing Director of ESCRYPT. “The solution will increase efficiency and reliability of ECU updates by improving security and reducing updating costs. Moreover the new secure software management provides the possibility for new business models like remote feature activation, providing secure software management services to OEMs, Tier 1s and vehicle owners.”
According to Yoram Berholtz, Automotive Business Line Manager, Redbend, “As the amount of software in vehicles increases so does the need to securely manage this software over-the-air. The software in cars should be able to be updated regardless of the location of the car – either at the dealer or in the owner’s driveway. This will minimize the cost of recalls and save the entire automotive ecosystem time and money.”
