The Secure Connected Transport Challenge, funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is being delivered in partnership with Zenzic, the body set up by the government and industry to move the UK to a connected vehicle future.

CCAV, Zenzic and Plexal have identified cybersecurity as a major challenge for next generation platooning technologies.

It’s anticipated that platooning could reduce emissions and deliver operating efficiencies that bring down transport costs. But as data is transferred within the infrastructure and between vehicles, it could become vulnerable to cyber attacks or breaches.

Connected vehicles present unique security challenges:

• Vehicles travel quickly, so authentication needs to happen quickly
• As the market matures there’s likely to be a large number of manufacturers, components, and complex architectures and solutions
• Vehicles have a lifespan of around ten years, so today’s encryption won’t be sufficient and post-quantum cryptography means vehicles produced today may have essentially zero encryption.
• There is a complex standards, legal and regulatory environment

CyberHive has been selected to work with the cohort to uncover, develop, integrate, and test potential solutions to fully realise the potential of connected and autonomous vehicles whilst ensuring protection from future threats.

Minister of State for Media, Data, and Digital Infrastructure Julia Lopez said:

“We’ve challenged the UK’s brightest tech pioneers to explore how we can keep vehicles secure from cyber threats and safely deliver benefits to the UK’s road transport system.”