Japanese car companies working on ‘anti-hacking’

Japanese car companies are working to find ways to block increasing cases of vehicle hacking – and are finding some success.

Panasonic has developed a device to monitor signals sent between electronic control units inside a car via an internal communications network based on the widely used Controller Access Network protocol.

Unauthorized signals are detected and canceled out.

The company plans to commercialise the device by 2020.

Meanwhile, a team at Fujitsu Laboratories and Yokohama National University is developing technology to notify the driver and encrypt signals when an attack is detected, allowing legitimate signals to be transmitted and the vehicle to stop safely.

Toyota-subsidiary Denso are working on ways to stop the taking-over of non-CAN network items such as door locks, while Ritsumeikan University and Mitsubishi Electric have jointly developed security technology that prevents the theft of digital keys for decrypting automotive network signals.