Sectigo Releases Embedded Firewall to Protect Automotive Systems

By Tiera Oliver

Assistant Managing Editor

Embedded Computing Design

December 19, 2019

News

Part of the Sectigo IoT Identity Platform, the new product was developed for transportation security.

To protect vehicles from cyberattacks, Sectigo, a commercial Certificate Authority and a provider of purpose-built and automated PKI management solutions, released the Sectigo Embedded Firewall for Automotive. The new Sectigo Embedded Firewall for Automotive is a security solution that has been embedded within automotive ECUs to provide anomaly detection, stateful packet inspection, rules-based filtering, and threshold-based filtering.

According to the company, by 2022, more than two-thirds of new cars on American roads will have online connections to their safety-critical system, putting them at risk of deadly hacks (Consumer Watchdog report, July 2019) to vehicles' "head" system, used primarily for infotainment, GPS navigation, and other features.

Part of the Sectigo IoT Identity Platform, the new product was developed for transportation security. To speed adoption-and security-across the automotive supply chain, Mentor, a Siemens business, a technology company in embedded software and electronic design automation (EDA), has integrated the Sectigo Embedded Firewall for Automotive with its popular AUTOSAR platform.

Protecting Automotive ECUs Through IoT Authentication

To protect from these attacks, automotive manufacturers need an embedded firewall to control traffic into the exposed electronic control units (ECUs) in a vehicle, similar to how a firewall protects home and corporate networks. Embedded firewalls help prevent access from outside cyberattacks on a car's electronics, while still enabling authenticated access for software upgrades and updates.

By protecting ECUs such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), steering, braking, etc. from attack, the firewall prevents access from outside cyberattacks on a car's electronics, while enabling access to upgrades and updates. The firewall:
• Works with AUTOSAR, Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) and Linux to configure filtering rules
• Offers deep packet inspection for industrial protocols, including CAN bus
• Meets the requirements of automotive systems by enforcing defined security policies, limiting communication with vehicle control systems to a small set of trusted hosts, and blocking attacks from any other source. 

For more information, please visit: https://sectigo.com/

Tiera Oliver is the assistant managing editor at Embedded Computing Design. She is responsible for web content editing, product news, and story development. She also manages, edits, and develops content for ECD podcasts, including Embedded Insiders.

She utilizes her expertise in journalism and content management to oversee editorial content, coordinate with editors, and ensure high-quality output across web, print, and multimedia platforms. She manages diverse projects, assists in the production of digital magazines, and hosts company podcasts by conducting in-depth interviews with industry leaders to deliver engaging and insightful discussions.

Tiera attended Northern Arizona University, where she received her bachelor's in journalism and political science. She was also a news reporter for the student-led newspaper, The Lumberjack. 

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