Interactions Between Functional Safety and Cybersecurity

Even a cursory survey of electronic control units (ECUs) in a typical vehicle will reveal that the majority of these ECUs are safety-relevant. Whether it is braking, steering, propulsion, or battery management, there is barely a vehicle system where maintaining safety is not a primary objective. Whenever a system is subjected to safety hazards, a whole suite of engineering practices and methods is employed to achieve the required level of safety integrity. These practices aim to eliminate unreasonable safety risks that would lead to harming a human being while the system was in use. Engineering safety-critical systems that are also resilient to cyberattacks adds a new dimension to automotive engineering and are one of the main differentiating factors between automotive cybersecurity and information security. In addition to its focus on securing vehicle and user data, automotive cybersecurity is also concerned with eliminating...