Panasonic and Trend Micro Agree to Develop Cyber-Security Solution for Connected Cars

Panasonic Corporation and Trend Micro Incorporated announced a partnership to jointly develop a cyber-security solution to detect and prevent cyber-attacks against autonomous and connected cars.
 
The partnership aims to achieve high security of autonomous and connected cars by developing a solution to detect and prevent intrusions into Electronic Control Units (ECUs)*1 that control driving behavior, such as acceleration, steering and braking, as well as in-vehicle infotainment (IVI*2) devices, including automotive navigation systems and telematics*3 devices.
 
The risks of hackers taking control of steering and braking systems in connected cars are real. New security vulnerabilities are discovered every day, and they pose a risk for remote exploitation. It is therefore more important than ever to not only implement security measures in each vehicle but also to analyze new attacks by constantly monitoring in-vehicle systems from the cloud and utilizing the results to implement countermeasures against cyber-attacks to all vehicles.
 
This partnership will leverage Panasonic’s Control Area Network (CAN) intrusion detection and prevention technology*4 and Trend Micro IoT Security. Panasonic’s technology will be able to detect any unauthorized commands sent to ECUs that control driving operation, while Trend Micro IoT Security*5, which utilizes Trend Micro’s global security intelligence and expertise such as malware*6 analysis, will be implemented on IVI devices, such as automotive navigation systems, to detect attacks that seek to exploit vulnerabilities through the internet. Through this partnership, events identified by both technologies will be collected and sent to an analysis platform in the cloud to detect and block suspicious traffic.
 
The overall development will enable the provision of solutions including in-vehicle and cloud systems to prevent cyber-attacks against autonomous and connected cars. Panasonic and Trend Micro will be working jointly on the development and aim to launch commercially after 2020.
 
■ Architecture to be jointly developed
 
*1 Electronic Control Unit: computers that control actuators, such as engine or steering actuators
 
*2 In-vehicle infotainment: entertainment and information applications available in vehicles
 
*3 Telematics: a service that sends/receives information to/from vehicles
 
*4 CAN intrusion detection and prevention technology: technology that monitors CAN (Control Area Network), which allows communications between ECUs to detect unauthorized commands and process them as invalid commands
 
*5 Trend Micro IoT Security: a security solution for embedded devices connecting outside the vehicle with IP communications on general purpose operating systems such as Linux
 
*6 Malware: a general term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile software or malicious code, including computer viruses, created to cause damage or harm.

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