CYBER SECURITY IN AN AUTOMOTIVE NETWORK

• US 20130104231A1
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Published: 04/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GM Global Technology Operations LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: GM Global Technology Operations LLC (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Niner, Rod, Costin, Mark H.
• Granted Patent: US 8,925,083 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/23
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/00 Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles locks for vehicles E05B77/00-E05B85/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/40 Bus networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/40273 the transportation system being a vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1416 Event detection, e.g. attack signature detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1466 Active attacks involving interception, injection, modification, spoofing of data unit addresses, e.g. hijacking, packet injection or TCP sequence number attacks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks

Abstract

Preventing spoofing in an automotive network includes monitoring, by electronic control unit, data packets on a bus in the automotive network. Upon determining, in response to the monitoring, that a data packet is from a source other than the electronic control unit, the preventing spoofing in the automotive network includes generating and transmitting a diagnostic message to at least one module in the automotive network over the bus, the diagnostic message instructing the at least one module to take no action on the data packet.

Claims

1. A method for preventing spoofing in an automotive network, the method comprising:

monitoring, by an electronic control unit, data packets on a bus in the automotive network; and

upon determining, in response to the monitoring, that a data packet is from a source other than the electronic control unit, generating and transmitting a diagnostic message to at least one module in the automotive network over the bus, the diagnostic message instructing the at least one module to take no action on the data packet.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data packet forms part of a message transmitted in response to a sensor reading.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is performed by an application executable by a processor of the electronic control unit.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the data packet is from another source by monitoring messages created by the electronic control unit and transmitted over the automotive network.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the other source is external to the automotive network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the automotive network is a wireless network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the data packet is transmitted over the automotive network via a transceiver.

8. A system for preventing spoofing in an automotive network, comprising:

an electronic control unit including a computer processor; and

an application executable by the computer processor, the application configured to implement a method, the method comprising;

monitoring data packets on a bus in the automotive network; and

upon determining, in response to the monitoring, that a data packet is from a source other than the electronic control unit, generating and transmitting a diagnostic message to at least one module in the automotive network over the bus, the diagnostic message instructing the at least one module to take no action on the data packet.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the data packet forms part of a message transmitted in response to a sensor reading.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the application is further configured to implement:

determining the data packet is from another source by monitoring messages created by the electronic control unit and transmitted over the automotive network.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the other source is external to the automotive network.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the automotive network is a wireless network.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the data packet is transmitted over the automotive network via a transceiver.

14. A computer program product for preventing spoofing in an automotive network, the computer program product comprising a computer storage medium having instructions embodied thereon, which when executed by a computer cause the computer to implement a method, the method comprising:

monitoring, by an electronic control unit, data packets on a bus in the automotive network; and

upon determining, in response to the monitoring, that a data packet is from a source other than the electronic control unit, generating and transmitting a diagnostic message to at least one module in the automotive network over the bus, the diagnostic message instructing the at least one module to take no action on the data packet.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the data packet forms part of a message transmitted in response to a sensor reading.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

determining the data packet is from another source by monitoring messages created by the electronic control unit and transmitted over the automotive network.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the other source is external to the automotive network.

18. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the automotive network is a controller-area network.

19. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the data packet is transmitted over the automotive network via a transceiver.

20. A method for preventing spoofing in an automotive network, the method comprising:

monitoring, by an electronic control unit, data packets on a bus in the automotive network; and

upon determining, in response to the monitoring, that a data packet is from a source other than the electronic control unit, performing a dominant override of data fields in the data packet using a dominant state and a recessive state of a state machine implemented by the electronic control unit.