by Rainer Makowitz

After the malware attacks on mobile devices running the Android operating system, speculations about automotive viruses have soared again. Compared to IT and telecom, the plague of car viruses has not (yet) arrived in the automotive industry. Open networks appeared in IT in 1985, and appeared in telecom 15 years later. It wasn’t until 2005 that open networks made it to automotive. IT-based attacks started to make headlines as early as 1990, and telecom followed 15 years later. Last year was the “year” of media coverage about attacks on cars. Apply this simple time pattern to malware: The virus phenomenon was widely seen in IT starting in 1995, and today we see it the telecom and mobile platform industries. Automotive is still unperturbed. For now.

But it is high time to look at the car as a connected IT system. The software is just beginning to be standardized and countermeasures are starting to be put in place to prevent major threats in the near future.

Here are the main reasons why your car is still very hard to hack if you apply a few common sense rules:

#1 Physical access is required to reach “open interfaces” like the OBD II connector or USB plugs.
Keep your car locked when you leave it.

#2  Most malware routes into the car are indirect in nature via attacks on service equipment and infested consumer devices.
Make sure you have malware defense established on your smartphone.

#3 Wireless access points are still rare and should be well defended.
Security breaches reported recently were due to significant violations of good software design practices in the custom code, e.g. telematics units, so hold off on subscribing to telematics services for now.

At the automotive security panel discussion at the Freescale Technology Forum this year, there was wide agreement that the car industry has to go back to the basics of security which means know your friends, know who you are communicating with, and follow common sense security practices.

Interested? Read the complete entryhttp://blogs.freescale.com/2011/07/21/automotive-radar-at-new-resolution-levels/

by Mike Garrard

At its heart is our 4 cylinder cost-effective port injection gasoline engine reference design. It has generated significant interest. In fact, the dozen boards I ordered were allocated before they were even built! The inquiries are so sufficient that I am considering pushing it forward into an open source design, with schematics, layout, and some code available as freeware and built up units available, at a fair price. Of course, I turned to the experts, Bowling and Grippo of MegaSquirt fame, to find out what to do. We are having some exciting discussions.

Here’s the video I mentioned earlier:

One feature B&G wanted to see was cost-effective calibration, so we brought in Phil, author of Tuner Studio to help marry the two together. The idea is to add a USB interface right onto the ECU board so it will connect directly to a calibration laptop. Fortuitously, I have exactly four pins spare. However, this means I have to make another PCB revision, which is where you petrolheads fit in. You see, I have a problem: I have to convince my boss to stump up the cash for, say, 100 PCBs, hundreds of chips, build, test, engineering resource to hang it all together into a nice package that you might then purchase off the web. I’ve told him there’s a community of nuts like me who will take (in my case) a 1971 Mini Cooper, engineer a pressurized fuel system, weld up a manifold, add efi, slap a turbo on-top and zoom around the countryside and rally meets telling everyone what a great job Freescale does with powertrain chips. But to be convinced, he needs to hear it from you. So if you agree, there’s a comment box below where you can add your support of this as a project and we can make this happen.

Interested? Read the complete entry

by Axel Streicher

On Tuesday, March 1, the “embedded world 2011” exhibition and conference in Nuremberg, Germany, opened its gates. Within a few hours, the embedded AWARD jury announced to the public and the press that the MPC5646, the newest member of Freescale’s Qorivva 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) built on Power Architecture technology, won the embedded AWARD 2011 in the hardware category.

What is the innovation behind the Qorivva MPC5646 family that made the high-profile jury select it as the embedded award 2011 winner?

Security of automotive electronics systems is an escalating concern for car makers, car owners and the insurance industry. Electronic control of automotive systems is steadily increasing, with large amounts of data streaming through body control modules and gateways. The Qorivva MPC5646 microcontroller is helping significantly reduce the security risks for that data. It is the first MCU for the automotive market that incorporates a cryptographic services engine (CSE), which enables secure and trustworthy transmission of information between electronic components. The cryptographic capabilities are targeted at a number of use cases such as blocking illegal manipulation of a vehicle’s mileage, activating immobilizers that prevent a car from being stolen without the key or preventing individual ECUs (electronic control units) from being dismantled and reused in other vehicles.

Interested? Read the complete entry