Cybersecurity and the auto industry: the growing challenges presented by connected cars

The term 'connected cars' embraces all small passenger vehicles which are connected to the internet in some way. Connected cars are no different from other nodes on the internet of things and face many of the same generic cybersecurity threats. Whilst most modern road vehicles, including buses and trucks, are now complex computer-laden devices, this article concentrates on cars where, arguably, the greatest cybersecurity challenges occur as a consequence of the number of vehicles involved, the potential disincentives to invest in cybersecurity, the range of user threats greater and overall risks the highest. Despite the magnitude and potential impacts of cybersecurity issues, there are relatively few contributions to the debate which focus on the wider social, economic and behavioural aspects rather than the technological. The varied and often competing incentives of different auto industry actors to invest in cybersecurity defences, and knowledge sharing in particular, are identified as a challenge to developing a specific and coherent industry response to the growing threats posed by cybersecurity breaches. This paper identifies threats which are specific to cars and possible strategies the auto industry might pursue to counter them.