On the road to secure car-to-car communications

PhysOrg.com) -- A European research project works out how to keep car-to-car data transmissions private and secure from malicious hackers.You pull out to overtake a slow lorry. Suddenly the lorry swerves into your path. You hit the brakes hard and avert a full-on collision by a whisker.

Thanking your luck, you drive on. But little do you know that the crash was not prevented by your lightening reflexes. Instead it took clever collaboration between the lorry, your car and the cars behind.

While you were stuck behind the lorry, a communications system mounted on your car had connected with one on the lorry. When the lorry swerved, your car immediately knew that it was in your path and automatically applied the brakes.

The extra fraction of a second's braking before you took over made all the difference. And a multi-car pile up was prevented by similar messages as they were relayed from your car to the vehicles behind.

The future in the fast lane

ICT is driving forward a new era of more efficient and safer road travel for European citizens. Just as ABS brake technology dramatically cut accidents and fatalities in the 1980s, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication will make our roads safer still.

But there is a big question to answer before the technology becomes widely adopted: is the communication link secure?

Imagine the chaos that a hacker could cause by sending bogus messages to vehicles. They could tell one car of an accident ahead, make the driver brake hard and actually cause an accident behind. They could invent fake traffic jams, encourage drivers to take alternative routes, then enjoy speeding along clear roads. Insecure communication systems could also let criminals track individual cars (e.g. celebrities, politicians) or harass drivers with unwanted alerts or spam messages.

“Car-makers and equipment manufacturers have to be certain that communication channels between cars and roadside infrastructure are secure from hackers and criminals and that their privacy is maintained,” explains Trialog’s Antonio Kung, coordinator of a European research project that has proposed a blueprint for secure car-to-car (C2C) connections. link..