Remote firewall update for on-board web server telematics system

• US 10,484,349 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2016
• Issued: 11/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Lei, Oliver, Murray, Allen R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gergiso, Techane
• Application Number:
  US15/186,710
• Publication Number:
  US 20170366521A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,247 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4588 containing mobile subscriber information, e.g. home subscriber server [HSS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5076 Update or notification mechanisms, e.g. DynDNS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0263 Rule management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0492 by using a location-limited connection, e.g. near-field communication or limited proximity of entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/03 Protecting confidentiality, e.g. by encryption
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/069 using certificates or pre-shared keys
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/088 using filters or firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/42 using virtual identity modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]

Abstract

A mobile device includes a processor, a transceiver, and a storage maintaining vehicle associations including phone numbers of telematics control units of vehicles. The device is programmed to identify a change in network address of the transceiver; encrypt the changed network address; and send the encrypted network address to the telematics control units using short message service messages addressed to the phone numbers of the telematics control units. A vehicle includes a storage including paired device data having phone numbers and network addresses of mobile devices and a telematics control unit including a firewall and web server. The firewall is programmed to, in response to receipt of a message from one of the phone numbers including a network address of the mobile device, update the storage to indicate the network address as an originating address authorized to use the web server.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a mobile device including a processor, a transceiver, and a storage maintaining vehicle associations including phone numbers of telematics control units of vehicles, programmed to

identify a change in network address of the transceiver;

encrypt the changed network address; and

send the encrypted network address to the telematics control units using short message service messages addressed to the phone numbers of the telematics control units.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the network address is one of an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address or Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device is further programmed to initiate a web connection to a network address of one of the telematics control units, wherein the one of the telematics control units is configured to authenticate the mobile device according to the network address of the mobile device and the encrypted network address.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the mobile device is further programmed to:

display an access portal including a listing of telematics web applications installed to a web server of the vehicle; and

access one of the telematics web applications via the web connection to request the vehicle to perform a telematics command.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein, for each vehicle, the storage further maintains an encryption key, and the mobile device is further programmed to:

encrypt the network address using an encryption key for a first of the telematics control units; and

send the encrypted network address to a phone number of the first of the telematics control units.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the mobile device is further programmed to:

encrypt the network address using an encryption key for a second of the telematics control units; and

send the encrypted network address to a phone number of the second of the telematics control units, wherein the encryption key for the first of the telematics control units and the encryption key for the second of the telematics control units are different keys.

7. A system comprising:

a storage including paired device data having phone numbers and network addresses of mobile devices; and

a telematics control unit including a firewall and web server, the firewall programmed to, in response to receipt of a message from one of the phone numbers including a network address of one of the mobile devices, update the storage to indicate the network address as an originating address authorized to use the web server.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the message is a binary short message service (SMS) message.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the storage further includes encryption keys associated with the mobile devices, wherein the telematics control unit is further programmed to decrypt the message using an encryption key from the encryption keys that is associated with the one of the mobile devices.

10. The system of claim 7, further comprising a plurality of vehicle controllers connected to a vehicle bus, wherein the telematics control unit is connected to the vehicle bus and the web server is further programmed to host a plurality of web applications configured to expose telematics functions of the vehicle controllers to the one of the mobile devices connected to the telematics control unit via a vehicle modem.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the web server is further programmed to:

send a user interface of one of the plurality of web applications to the one of the mobile devices; and

receive a command request from the one of the mobile devices indicating user selection of a telematics function exposed by the user interface.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the network address is one of an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address or Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address.

13. A method comprising:

encrypting an updated Internet network address of a mobile device using an encryption key tied to a telematics control unit; and

sending the encrypted network address to the telematics control unit using a short message service (SMS) message addressed to a phone number of the telematics control unit.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

monitoring the network address of a transceiver of the mobile device; and

initiating the encrypting responsive to identifying a change in the network address of the transceiver.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the network address is one of an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address or Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising initiating a web connection to a network address of the telematics control unit.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising authenticating the mobile device by the telematics control unit by ensuring the network address of the mobile device and the encrypted network address are a match.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the SMS message is encoded as a binary SMS message.