Safety-Related Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility Services: Interplay Between Functional and Security Requirements

Together with the electrification of vehicles, the provision of cooperative, connected, and automated mobility (CCAM) services is a prominent recent trend in the automotive sector. Upcoming car models will be able to exchange messages between themselves and with road traffic authorities by means of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication – in particular, leveraging mobile network technologies for the so-called cellular V2X (C-V2X) paradigm. Moreover, (part of) such exchanged messages will be processed as a whole in, e.g., edge computing servers, in order to generate a global vision of the state of a given road stretch. CCAM services will exploit vehicular information transport and processing to implement complex maneuvers in a (semi)automatic manner by interacting with the in-car network. The undeniable benefits of CCAM services should be coupled with their security, though. Proper protection mechanisms of V2X communication as well as of edge processing must be put in place with the ultimate scope of ensuring the security of car’s critical functions such as e.g., driver assistance, collision warning, and automatic emergency braking. As a matter of fact, according to the ongoing discussions in the European Union (EU) and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), all new vehicle models will be approved only if they fulfill the cybersecurity requirements of the General Safety Regulation starting July 6, 2022. In this article, we will overview the major standards in terms of automotive security specifications, specifically focusing on those related to the external connectivity of cars. Moreover, since not all threats may be caught at a specification level, we will perform a qualitative security assessment of safetyrelated CCAM services featured by the EU-funded project 5G-CARMEN, with the final aim of highlighting the delicate interplay between functional and security requirements