An Open Approach for Designing Secure Electronic Immobilizers

The automotive industry has developed electronic immobilizers to reduce the number of car thefts since the mid nineties. However, there is not much information on the current solutions in the public domain, and the annual number of stolen cars still causes a significant loss. This generates other costs particularly regarding the increased insurance fees each individual has to pay. In this paper we present a system model that captures a variety of security aspects concerning electronic immobilizers. We consider generic security and functional requirements for constructing secure electronic immobilizers. The main practical problems and limitations are addressed and we give some design guidance as well as possible solutions