An Efficient and Secure Automotive Wireless Software Update Framework

Future vehicles will be wirelessly connected to nearby vehicles, to the road infrastructure, and to the Internet, thereby becoming an integral part of the Internet of Things. New comfort features, safety functions, and a number of new vehicle-specific services will be integrated in future smart vehicles. These include a fast, secure, and reliable way to diagnose and reconfigure a vehicle, as well as the installation of new software (SW) on its integrated electronic control units (ECUs). Such wireless SW updates are beneficial for both automotive carmakers and customers, as they allow us to securely enable new features on the vehicle and to fix SW bugs by installing a new SW version over the air. A secure and dependable wireless SW update process is valuable in the entire lifetime of a modern vehicle as it can be used already during vehicle development and manufacturing process on the assembly line, as well as during vehicle maintenance in a service center. Additionally, future vehicles will allow us to remotely download up-to-date SW on the ECUs. To support this process over the entire vehicle's lifetime, a generic framework is needed. In this paper, SecUp, a generic framework enabling secure and efficient wireless automotive SW updates is proposed. SecUp utilizes IEEE 802.11s as wireless medium to interconnect vehicles and diagnostic devices in a dependable and fast way. Additionally, SecUp is enabling beneficial wireless SW update features such as parallel and partial SW updates to increase the efficiency, and comprises advanced security mechanisms to prevent abuse and attacks.