NOVI – Dave

Miller, the Chief Security Officer at Covisint, a B2B cloud company, says it is time to start thinking of

cars as people. Give cars an identity. Make cars log into the cloud to collect

updates, music, personal preferences, the lot.

The big

difference from today is credentials are not stored in the car, but in the

cloud. But the authentication comes from a centralized hub, Miller said.

“I’ve authenticated

as Dave Miler’s car and I need to find my wife,” Miller said. “Move the action

to the cloud. Maker hackers have to hack a cloud system.”

He said the

biggest challenge is the apps require you to touch the car. In the case of

Bluetooth, it has to get the signal. But in other cases, a plug-in is

downloaded and the hackers have found a way to get into the apps.

In Miller’s

scenario, the car can’t do anything unless it authenticates.

This was the

tale told by Miller, and Cisco’s Director of Smart Connected Vehicles Andreas

Maj at TU Automotive Detroit 2015. They also discussed together how the two

companies will enable manufacturers to usher in a new era of vehicle connectivity.

Connected

cars are increasingly joining our smartphones and connected homes at the center

of our digital lives offering increased convenience, personalization and

entertainment value, but what most of us don’t fully understand are the

security consequences of loading all our personal information, data and

passwords in to a vehicle.

“We support

OnStar, Hyundai Blue Link with this,” Miller said. “They like the idea of a

token-based authentication. It provides a central place to manage vehicles.”

For

instance, Miller said, he goes through the process of setting up his car and

connecting it to the cloud. Then, in three years, his car gets totaled. His

personal information doesn’t go to the junk yard with his car. It remains

safely stored in the cloud.

“Or if the car

is stolen, you immediately deprovision it from anything it can do.”

Cybersecurity

expert Richard Stiennon said car authentication from the cloud is a good

direction for vehicle makers to take.

“They also

should separate the entertainment from car controls,” Stiennon said. “But they

also need to separate sensors from entertainment. Hackers can hack pressure

gauges to take control of the car. Cars are the enterprise all over again. You

need strict controls over separation and authentication.”