Who’s Connecting to Your Car? a ‘Proof-Based System’ to Secure the Car

As the systems in your new car become “connected” Guardtime and Symphony Teleca partner to bring Active Integrity and Mutual Auditability to the connected car and its ecosystems

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--September 16, 2013: The digital systems in today’s connected car, including engine, infotainment and telematics systems, provide communications, numerous conveniences, information, safety, maintenance, security and are advancing towards driver minimalist features and even completely self-driving vehicles. The amount of data being generated is increasing rapidly to support these features. When combined with an integrated mobile device, GPS data and social profiles, the connected car becomes a powerful collector and broadcaster of information. This data is broadcast over public airwaves and stored in the Cloud. Considering the modern connected car has up to 100 million lines of software code, as data becomes more critical to the operation of the vehicle and the connected car ecosystem, it is important to have Active Integrity™ to verify critical systems in real-time, while Mutual Auditability™ assures privacy, safety, security, legality and insurability.

“As we talk with our automotive customers we realize that Cyber Liability is the elephant in the room. With Guardtime, we can now provide assurance to the data transiting what we design, build and host, as well as the principle of Mutual Auditability to our customers keeping the ecosystem accountable.”

A fundamental problem with current security models is that it is hard to discover (and subsequently prove) a breach event if the wall or keys are compromised. With such an attack, it becomes impossible to assure the reliability of the digital asset as it may have been changed or accessed by unauthorized parties (who then covered their tracks). Guardtime’s Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI™) is an alternative technology for authenticating electronic data. KSI is changing the game, with an effective attestation-based security model, by attaching complex mathematical “tags” directly to the data, which makes any access to that data a documented and verifiable event. Time, identity, authenticity and historical provenance of the data is protected and verified in real-time using Guardtime’s patented ‘proof-based’ technology; instead of protections afforded by administrators or credentials that can be compromised.

Global innovation and development services company Symphony Teleca (STC) and Guardtime, the world’s leading provider of KSI software and solutions for Software Assurance have announced a partnership to bring these new security, safety, maintenance, and reliability capabilities to enhance the Connected Car ecosystem. STC and Guardtime KSI create solutions to enhance the security and reliability of the connected car software lifecycle, whether from delivery mechanisms such as Over The Air (OTA), or directly from the maintenance portal. With the value of software in vehicles set to increase as much as 50 percent by 2020, it is imperative for OEMs to effectively manage their software lifecycles.

STC’s InSight Connect™ Vehicle Relationship Management is a robust example of an end-to-end supervising management solution that directly addresses the challenges posed by vehicle-related services ranging from diagnostics and infotainment, to software upgrade and maintenance. Guardtime KSI enhances this offering with a safe and reliable delivery approach that works within the existing business models provided by dealerships, warranty, and repair centers.

The partnership couples the unprecedented Software Assurance capabilities of Guardtime’s KSI technology with STC’s role as a consulting engineering company for Cloud, Mobility, Enterprise and Connected Cars. This combination creates an agile and responsive KSI solution provider needed to ensure effective integration of KSI for Connected Cars.

Mike Gault, Guardtime’s CEO related, “When we looked for partners to implement our technology, we asked ourselves who is building the devices, software and clouds that make up the Connected Car ecosystem on a global basis… Symphony Teleca is designing the interfaces, building and integrating the software in the car and managing the Cloud in the back end for Primary automotive brands and Tier 1 providers to those brands on a global scale. Their engagement in every piece of Connected Car will allow Guardtime’s KSI technology to be rapidly deployed into the ecosystem from the car, through the applications and Mobile devices and into the Cloud.”

“STC has been a global market leader in helping major brands bring innovative mobility, connectivity and Cloud solutions to market and at scale,” said STC VP and Global Head of Products and Platform Strategy, Russ Cavan. “As we talk with our automotive customers we realize that Cyber Liability is the elephant in the room. With Guardtime, we can now provide assurance to the data transiting what we design, build and host, as well as the principle of Mutual Auditability to our customers keeping the ecosystem accountable.”

As more and more data traverses public airwaves and increasingly secure networks allow unsecure Mobile devices to connect to their networks, the issue of data integrity, Software Assurance and Mutual Auditability remains an unanswered question. Guardtime answers that question.