Symantec, the global cybersecurity giant, has taken aim at the IoT’s Connected Car market, and the hackers determined to find a breach and initiate a “Zero Day” scenario. The Symantec Anomaly Detection for Automotive (ADA) is a software solution designed to protect IoT-enabled cars against never-before-seen attacks by looking for unauthorized attempts to access and other “anomalies” and blocking them until they can be verified.
“Machine learning gives us the ability to do high-level detection [of security problems] with extremely low false positive rates,” said Brian Witten, Senior Director, Mobile & IoT, Symantec. “We’re already under evaluation with four of the world’s largest automakers.”
Symantec Anomaly Detection for Automotive uses machine learning to provide passive in-vehicle security analytics that monitor all Controller Area Network (CAN) bus traffic without disrupting vehicle operations. Over time, it will learn what normal behavior looks like and flag any anomalous activity that could indicate an attack. Symantec says that the solution is designed to work with virtually any automotive make and model.
“Driven by opportunity, manufacturers and their suppliers will partner with cybersecurity vendors on securing connected cars as they would with any other networked endpoints such as mobile devices and laptops,” said Christian Christiansen, VP, Security Products, IDC. “Keeping security top of mind will not only help ensure the safety of drivers and passengers but also build trust in the car manufactures and the overall Internet of Things ecosystem.”
ADA is designed to learn the vehicle’s behavior in a deep, precise way in order to help automakers to see previously invisible attacks. The analytics engine will automatically prioritize incidents based on perceived criticality and risk and detect anomalies without requiring manufacturers to set rules or create policies.
This is only the latest example of Symantec’s investment of IoT-targeted security solutions. In fact, the company recently announced that it is already securing more than 1 billion IoT devices, from cars to smart meters to industrial control systems. The other Connected Car solutions from Symantec are Symantec Embedded Security: Critical System Protection, Code Signing, and Managed Public Key Infrastructure.
Connected car hacks are becoming a real problem, as new vulnerabilities like the one found in the Mitsubishi Highlander are identified daily, it seems. “A lot of people look at these attacks as if they are specific to the brand, but a lot of them have these vulnerabilities,” Witten said. Fixing these specific problems as they are found is like “putting a Band-Aid on a knife wound and then going into a swordfight. They just need better armor.”
Woe to the wicked.
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