Using software monitoring programs to find and destroy malware, Barzilai maintains, is too slow and requires constant updates by developers that can promote an arms race with hackers, who try to outwit security programs as they grow more sophisticated. Its role is to block spurious code at the point of intrusion, sealing the ECU and denying entry to any code that does not comply explicitly with the factory settings. Karamba’s antihacking software is embedded in an ECU when it is manufactured, so it is incorporated into the device’s factory settings and not subject to change.

Karamba focuses on blocking intrusion at these points, as one critical layer of a larger security design. Only a handful, such as the infotainment system and the remote keyless entry, are connected wirelessly to the outside world, offering openings for attackers. “Vulnerabilities will be inadvertently designed into systems,” says Sam Abuelsamid, a senior analyst for Navigant, a marketing research firm based in Boulder, Colorado.Ī premium car may come equipped with a hundred or more electronic control units, or ECUs (in actuality, small computers), connected to one another as part of the vehicle’s electronic architecture. Given the skill, motivation, and creativity of hackers, it is unclear that any one approach can comprehensively block their entry to a vehicle’s electronic architecture.

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