Securing the Secret Key 2019-01-0097

Recent advances in automotive technologies have paved way to a new era of connectivity. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems are getting deployed in automobiles; many companies are developing driverless cars; connected cars are no more a work of mere research. [1] Vehicle manufacturers are developing ways to interface mobile devices with vehicles. However, all these advances in technology has introduced security risks. Unlike traditional computing systems, the security risk of an automobile can be fatal and can result in loss of lives [2]. The in-vehicle network of an automobile was originally designed to operate in a closed environment and hence network security was not considered during its design [3]. Several studies have already shown that an in-vehicle network can be easily compromised and an intruder can take full control of the vehicle. Researchers are working on various ways to solve this problem. Securing the in-vehicle communication by encrypting the messages is one such way. This depends on the strength of the secret key used to encrypt the messages. In an automobile, these secret keys will be inside the automobile itself. If the in-vehicle network is compromised, then the secret keys will get exposed to intruders. There should be mechanisms to secure the secret keys. In this paper, we propose a way of securing the secret key for automotive network.