Connected cars ‘smartphones on wheels,’ Senate committee hears

OTTAWA — The development of connected and autonomous vehicles might be the thing that makes the issue of cyber security tangible, a Canadian intelligence official told senators Tuesday. “Unfortunately, our smartphones are just this thing in the ether. It doesn’t really touch us. If your identity is stolen right now and you have money taken from your bank account, the bank makes you whole,” Scott Jones, assistant deputy minister of information technology security at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), told members of the Senate’s transport and communications committee. “Whereas this time, now it will actually have physical consequences.” The committee has been studying the regulatory and technical issues related to the deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles, which Jones characterized as essentially having “a smartphone on wheels where we now have to worry about patching and keeping it up to date, not only for performance reasons, but also for security.” But unlike a wireless device, Jones noted, if the “hacker mentality” takes over and a user attempts to jailbreak a vehicle, it could be cause for concern. “When your smartphone malfunctions, it’s in your pocket and it’s inconvenient. So you’ve got a consumer issue there as well where you might have consumers that will want to put their own special updates on the car to let it exceed speeds, or to have different control systems or to have tighter suspension or things like that,” he said. The government also needs to take into consideration the issue of people hacking into vehicles, whether they’re doing it for fun, because they’re a state actor, or a terrorist, witnesses told the senate committee. Whether law enforcement agencies should have the ability to access and override an autonomous vehicle is still up for discussion. A counter-measures program would have to be explored, said RCMP Chief Supt. Eric Stubbs, similar to what the national police force currently has in place with unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. “The what-if scenarios are where, under exigent circumstances with the safety of the public in mind, we may have to have an ability to stop a vehicle by our devices,” Stubbs said. “It would be in a very extreme situation, however that possibility is there and exploring those avenues, I think, would have to be made in partnership with industry to ensure that there was an ability for us to override those systems.” Jones acknowledged that the issues raised by connected and autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things (IoT) as a whole, aren’t ones being actively pursued by the security agency, “in a world of limited resources.” He said that for the past few years, there’s been a heavy focus on dealing with cyber threats of “absolutely today,” but that CSE is now in a position “where we’re trying to be proactive about blocking the threat that’s coming.” However, he agreed with comments from Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu that “we need to look a little bit more at what’s coming ahead,” adding that “we have not been paying enough attention on the proactive nature .” Jones suggested that part of the work starts with education of the consumer base, and that when customers shopping for connected cars begin asking questions, manufacturers will have to put more emphasis on security investments. Conservative Sen. Bob Runciman said he was dubious about leaving it up to vehicle manufacturers to put in the necessary safeguards. “I’m not a big fan of government intervention, but I think this is an area where the government has to play a more activist role, if you will, with respect to the kinds of requirements that are going to protect our privacy and protect the national security of the country,” Runciman said, adding he thought that connected vehicles should be equipped with ID verification and security technology before being sold. — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Connected cars ‘smartphones on wheels,’ Senate committee hears

News | April 4, 2017

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Connected cars ‘smartphones on wheels,’ Senate committee hears

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