Debunking the myths of driverless cars

8 March 2019

Story by David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab for techradar.pro.

The Department for Transport claimed it wants to see fully autonomous cars tested on UK roads by 2021. Astonishingly, this expectation was set out after several fatal crashes in Arizona, outlining a very real danger to pedestrians and passengers as a possible consequence of this technology.

The system and infrastructure used in cars today (known as a Controller Area Network) was designed back in the 80s. It was developed for exchanging information between different micro controllers. Essentially what we have is a peer-to-peer network - and an old one at that.

The main issue here is these networks were not built with security in mind, as it was not a key concern at the time. As time has gone on, modern-day functionality has been layered onto the existing CAN infrastructure. This gives it no access control or security features, but instead, leaves access to cars potentially open to criminals.

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