Volkswagen has teamed up with an Israeli group to launch a cybersecurity company. This company is called Cymotive and will be headquarted in both Israel and Germany. The Cymotive chairman said:
“Together with Volkswagen we are building a top-notch team of cyber security experts. We are aware of the significant technological challenges that will face us in the next years in dealing with the cyber security threats facing the connected car and the development of the autonomous car.”
Now that cars are becoming ‘smarter’, security for the connected cars is becoming top priority. I wouldn’t be surprised if more car companies start some kind of cyber initiative similar to this one. I just hope that the car companies collaborate together in terms of research and development to improve the security of these cars.
link: http://www.zdnet.com/article/volkswagen-launches-new-cybersecurity-firm-to-tackle-car-security/
Interesting article Ahmed. I am curious as to how much of Cymotive services and solutions will be used/shared across the automobile industry or whether they will exclusively support Volkswagen. It’s apparent that there is a lot of investment in securing autonomous vehicles across the industry, however I wonder how much of this investment is occurring silos.
In many industries, such as the financial industry, security leaders maintain that security should not be considered a competitive advantage. Therefore, information sharing forums are established to collaborate on security issues. Hopefully the same approach will be taken in the automobile industry.
Yeah even I came across this article and we can get an idea of how much the automobile companies are gearing up to tackle car security.There is also an 4th annual automotive cyber security summit to be held in Sanfransisco in Oct last week where the leading automobile giants gonna discuss the new emerging issue of ensuring cyber security in the automobiles
Ahmed,
This is a very interesting article. With cars becoming “smarter” and addressing all of the needs of consumers, such as Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, compatibility with smart devices, automobiles are very susceptible to cyber attacks. I believe we will begin to see more companies such as this popping up in the future, and automotive companies partnering with cyber-security firms.
As far as I know, each car manufacturer uses proprietary coding in their systems. We know this from the hot rodeos that have put together reprogrammers for various cars. They have indicated that each manufacturer has to be reverse engineered separately. Some hardware is shared, but not all. So… I’m thinking there will be limited opportunity to share solutions specific solutions between manufacturers.
Wade
Ahmed, this is an interesting article that it reminded me of the article I posted in week 1. I agree that security of car’s system and internal network should one of the top concern of car manufacturers, especially when cars are becoming increasingly smart and more rely on the systems inside the cars. Researchers have approved that system vulnerabilities enable hackers to access the car’s internal network through the entertainment system, and even take the control of the car. It is extremely dangerous.Therefore, it is necessary for car manufacturers, Volkswagen in this case, to focus on car security. Volkswagen is the first one do so, I hope it isn’t the last one.