System-Theoretic Perspectives of Automotive Cybersecurity

Workshop Overview:

Advancements in embedded systems, sensor technologies, communication devices, and artificial intelligence have resulted in vehicles that are pervasively monitored by dozens of digital computing units coordinated via internal vehicular communication networks. While this evolution in vehicle connectivity has propelled major advancements in driving efficiency, it has also introduced a new range of potential risks, including the unwanted access of third parties with malicious motives which can endanger driving safety. For instance, it has been experimentally demonstrated that bypassing the security mechanisms of a vehicle is not difficult for attackers. Moreover, attackers can also completely erase any evidence of their presence. Such incidents have resulted in serious concerns about the security of their vehicles, without which vehicle autonomy and connectivity will not gain society's acceptance. Despite recent progress in vehicle security, there is still no clear solution to address the safety of vehicles specifically when attackers manage to access the vehicle control system, i.e., the last defense line after which the vehicle motion is affected by the attack. 

The American Control Conference, one of the leading annual assemblies of systems and control researchers, serves as an ideal platform for addressing the critical topic of automotive cybersecurity from a systems and control perspective. This workshop's objective is to spotlight the challenges within this domain and introduce recent tools and methodologies designed to prevent, detect, and mitigate adversarial actions within vehicle systems. In particular, our focus will revolve around the following key research areas:

• Understanding the impact of attacks on vehicles, including their dynamics models and their control systems.

• Studying attack impact and detectability in vehicle control systems. 

• Developing attack detection and attack mitigation modules for vehicle control systems. 

• Investigating the performance degradation by securing the control systems of vehicles (security-performance trade-off). 

The proposed workshop aims to elevate the discourse on automotive cybersecurity by emphasizing its status as a multidisciplinary field of research. The event includes research presentations featuring distinguished figures from academia and the automotive industry which underscores the interdisciplinary nature of research required to address the complex challenges within the domain of automotive cybersecurity. By engaging students, researchers, and industry practitioners, the workshop seeks to foster a vibrant community invested in advancing safe and secure automotive systems.

Our target audience includes students, researchers, and industry practitioners interested in the growing domain of safe and secure automotive systems. This interactive workshop will include tutorial-style talks by renowned experts in the field. These talks will provide valuable insights into the roles of systems and control methods, combined with machine learning techniques, in bolstering the resilience and security of automotive systems. We will explore how to effectively integrate various perspectives to create efficient yet secure vehicle control systems. Furthermore, the workshop aims to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical implementation by exploring effective integration strategies. The combination of systems and control theory with machine learning brings forth a powerful synergy that can significantly enhance the efficiency and security of vehicle control systems. Through a collaborative exploration of diverse perspectives, the workshop endeavors to formulate comprehensive approaches that balance the need for efficiency with the imperatives of security, a critical consideration in the era of connected and autonomous vehicles.

Organizers

Mohammad Pirani (Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ottawa, Canada)

Ehsan Nekouei (Department of Electrical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

Karl Henrik Johansson (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)

Walter Lucia (Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, Concordia University, Canada)

Bruno Sinopoli (Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, USA)

Speakers and Title of Talks

Sebastian Fischmeister (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo)

Title: Physics-Based approach to automotive cybersecurity

Alireza Mohammadi (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Michigan-Dearborn)

Title: Vehicle Lateral Motion Dynamics Under Braking/ABS Cyber-Physical Attacks

Giuseppe Franze’ (Department of Information and Systems Engineering, University of Calabria)

Title: Autonomous Vehicle Platoons in Urban Road Networks: a Sustainable and Resilient Distributed Approach

Kaidi Yang (Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore)

Title: privacy-preserving traffic control in a connected vehicle environment. 

Peter Martin (Quanser)

Title: Self Drive Car Studio (SDCS) and Virtual QCar: an open-architecture scaled model vehicle

Paria Shirani (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa)

Title: Vulnerability Detection in Firmware Images through Binary Code Analysis 

Mohammad Pirani (Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ottawa)

Title: Security of Connected Vehicles from Network Perspective

Workshop Schedule

8:45-9:00   Workshop Opening (Mohammad Pirani)

9:00-9:40  Physics-Based approach to automotive cybersecurity (Sebastian Fischmeister)

9:45-10:25  Self Drive Car Studio (SDCS) and Virtual QCar: an open-architecture scaled model vehicle (Peter Martin)

10:25-10:45 Break

10:45-11:25 Autonomous Vehicle Platoons in Urban Road Networks: a Sustainable and Resilient Distributed Approach (Giuseppe Franze’)

11:30-12:10 Privacy-preserving traffic control in a connected vehicle environment (Kaidi Yang)

12:10-1:30 lunch

1:30-2:10  Vehicle Lateral Motion Dynamics Under Braking/ABS Cyber-Physical Attacks (Alireza Mohammadi) 

2:15-2:55 Vulnerability Detection in Firmware Images through Binary Code Analysis  (Paria Shirani)

3:00-3:15  Workshop Closing (Mohammad Pirani)