Carmakers these days are clearly seduced by the power automotive electronics have to help sell their cars. At wolfSSL, we`re seeing more and more connected auto devices getting designed (and secured by CyaSSL) in recent years. All of the carmakers and their suppliers we deal with are quite cognizant of the security risks their connected devices pose, and the need for high quality small footprint SSL/TLS and encryption in their cars to battle man in the middle attacks. That said, given the state of flux of the `connected car`, the inexperience of many automotive electronics engineers with security considerations, hacks will happen. Today we note a great article on the topic.
Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek will be presenting a fresh round of Automobile Hacks at Defcon next month, and a well written teaser article on their work is available here from Andy Greenberg of Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/24/hackers-reveal-nasty-new-car-attacks-with-me-behind-the-wheel-video/
(this article is no longer accessible on the forbes website as of Aug. 7, 2018)
If you`re at Black Hat or Defcon in the coming weeks, and want to discuss mitigating MITM automotive attacks with SSL, we`ll be available. We`ve been helping automakers secure their electronics for 8 years now, and can share some of our experiences. Just flag us down through facts@wolfssl.com.