CONTROLLING CONNECTED CARS SAFELY WITH APIsEvery mobile device connected to the internet poses a security risk. The requirements of the infrastructure

for services in connected cars are high for the following reason: Cyber attacks on cars represent a realistic

threat scenario. Hackers can infi ltrate the driver’s profi le through the car in order to either control the vehicle

or access utilised services. Axway discusses options.

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COVER STORY APP DEVELOPMENT

CLIENT REQUIREMENTS

Mobile Apps that can be utilised inside as well as outside of the vehicle make the networked car a reality. Several pres-tigious manufacturers have already developed vehicle systems that are con-nected to the internet through mobile networks. This trend is growing in response to the desire of tomorrow’s car purchaser for features such as personal-ised adjustment of seats and mirrors, intelligent navigation, concierge services, access to email and social networks, and of course one’s own music downloaded from a fl at-rate account at an online music service. A car is no longer just a car – it is now itself a mobile device inside which the “user” (driver) moves about in his or her personalised online world, ➊.

And the ideas coming from develop-ment teams at auto manufacturers and internet companies, from those who think about future trends, are taking it even further: Already it is technically feasible to apply a personalised profi le to a driver in his or her own vehicle and to access

and apply that same profi le in a different vehicle, such as a company-owned or rented vehicle. The driver will log in only one time to the system, and automatically the seats and mirrors will adjust to the driver’s favorite position, the air condi-tioning will be set to the desired tem-perature, and the driver’s favorite music will pour through the speakers, inter-rupted only by incoming emails. The on-board assistant helps the driver fi nd a parking spot, and the car parks itself without human intervention. At the cut-ting edge of this trend, Google is work-ing to develop a controlling system for the auto that does not rely on a human driver at all; Ford wants to bring portable sensors to the market that inform the car regarding the driver’s state of health; and Apple is working on replacing dash-boards with voice commands.

Lucrative business opportunities are clearly the attraction driving this level of innovation. The trade group for the mobile communication industry, GSMA [1], re -presentative for over 250 mobile network operators and accessories and software

AUTHOR

DIETMAR KOCHis Vice President

Product Management, B2B – Automotive & eInvoice at Axway in Berlin (Germany).

❶ The customer acquires mobile service as part of the car purchase

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manufacturers, projects sales relating to the networked car to be in excess of 39 billion Euro by 2018 (up from 13 billion Euro in 2012). Clearly, the consumer is ready to spend money on these types of additional services.

MOBILITY WILL DEPEND ON IT

Car manufacturers are now faced with a big challenge: These mobile services require an infrastructure that takes care of customer management and safeguards customer mobility; because, in effect, the customer will acquire mobile service as part of the car purchase.

The next challenge that arises is how a driver’s identity will be validated and communicated to the car. In order to deliver the personalised driving experi-ence specifi ed in the driver profi le, the vehicle must be able to access the account where that data is stored. This kind of identity management is no trivial task for a large manufacturer that may have hundreds of thousands of customers. The sheer volume of data that must be administered and available is immense. In addition, customers want their ser-vices to function across national borders. Poor internet connectivity that leads to interruptions in service will simply be unacceptable. Also, if these services are to be invoiced, the data surrounding uti-lisation of the services must still be evaluated.

It is reasonable to assume that each and every car maker or service provider will not want to establish its own iden-tity management system, especially since almost every user already has an online identity of some kind, on Facebook or

Google for instance. These kinds of fed-erated identity systems lend themselves well to use in the new terrain of con-nected cars, since there is already trust in the identity data entered into those systems. If the user successfully man-ages to log-in to his or her Facebook account, that user could then have access to his or her reserved mobile services as well. This approach would relieve the manufacturer of the need to deploy its own identity management system.

If, however, a user cannot log-in because the internet connection is poor at the current location, or the third-party pro-vider of the identity management system is suffering server failure at that moment, the vehicle may not be able to move from its current position or may have to be driven without any additional services. Even personalised amenities may only function when the supporting IT infra-structure is available at the necessary level of performance.

CAN MANUFACTURERS GUARANTEE DATA SECURITY?

Every mobile device connected to the internet poses a security risk. The require -ments of the infrastructure for services in connected cars are high for the follow-ing reason: Cyber attacks on cars repre-sent a realistic threat scenario. Hackers can infi ltrate the driver’s profi le through the car in order to either control the vehicle or access utilised services.

Furthermore, connected cars collect a large amount of personal data. On the one hand, manufacturers can utilise the data to improve services for the customer. For example, data about upcoming ser-

vice work would enable the manufacturer to actively reach out to the customer and ask him or her to come to the auto repair shop. On the other hand, a connected auto is also aware of the driver’s driving habits and knows whether or not the rules of the road are being observed. Insurance companies could have great interest in this kind of information.

Manufacturers have to fundamentally deliberate how they handle such per-sonal data and how they can convince the customer that their data will be treated confi dentially. Based on the current state of data protection laws around the world, it is not clear to whom this data would belong. Mobility across borders makes this puzzle even more complex, because data protection regulations are not even uniform within Europe. For example, what could or should be done with usage and geographical information collected in Switzerland, when the car crosses the border into Germany? This subject is so controversial and complex that no public discussion is currently taking place, nor is a clear solution in sight.

CLIENT SERVER INFRASTRUC TURES IN A NEW DIMENSION

The predominant, classic client /server infrastructure on the manufacturer side functions based on a direct connection between the client and the server. The client is typically known and pre-installed. This scenario can hardly be maintained in the mobile world, how-ever. Admittedly, an infrastructure for mobile services will also have a client/server structure; but it will need to func-tion for many diverse clients whose char-acteristics are constantly changing. Times when high-volumes of data must be trans-ferred are just as diffi cult to predict as are the parameters of connectivity. Fur-thermore, the infrastructure would in principle be required worldwide and around the clock, in order to guarantee full mobility.

In addition, infrastructure and services must be scalable in the extreme. Every manufacturer will want to be able to claim, with some level of certainty, how many vehicles it sells. However, which customer ultimately utilises which ser-vices, and how broadly, will remain very dynamic. In conventional company in -frastructures, it is easy to plan when an

❷ The optimal architectural pattern for connected cars will echo existing patterns for web retail on mobile devices patterns for web retail on mobile devices

COVER STORY APP DEVELOPMENT

12

assistant needs a new client or applica-tion, or at which times peak loads need to be covered. If during auto production, however, several hundred vehicles leave the assembly line, and every buyer wishes to make use of mobile services, then the infrastructure must be adequately con-fi gured to support that need: It should be capable of cushioning load peaks, and at the same time, it should not remain idle during periods of low levels of data transfer. Cost-effi ciency, elastic scalabil-ity and availability are the central chal-lenges here.

APIS AS MESSENGERS BETWEEN APP AND DEVICE

The optimal architectural pattern for connected cars will echo existing archi-tectural patterns for web retail on mobile devices, with countless units communi-cating with their manufacturers, and manufacturers scaling to communicate with countless units. A key to all of this is the manufacturer’s successful integra-tion of application programming inter-faces (APIs). To guarantee availability and defend against Denial of Service attacks (DoS) attacks, the enterprise’s servers, whether on-premise or in the cloud, must have a global footprint that provides low latency access wherever the cars and drivers may be, isolates geographically

localised risks, monitors metrics, and ensures transparency and elasticity.

Fortunately, today’s API security meth-odologies make establishing API infra-structures within the enterprise – and connecting cars to the cloud – a real and safe possibility. Nevertheless, there is a triangulation problem, ➋, because it is one thing to connect a vehicle to the cloud and give its manufacturer access to performance metrics and service data, but it’s quite another to connect that vehicle’s owner to the cloud and give them access to the vehicle itself.

It is important to keep that in mind – the fact that there are two independent pieces to the security problem, and that both must be addressed to ensure the enterprise’s successful integration of APIs.

Fortunately again, the mechanisms needed to manage these complex rela-tionships are embraced by modern API security standards, such as OAuth 2.0. Initially born to solve consumer internet problems like logging into fl ickr with a Facebook ID, this separation and abstrac-tion of identities, credentials, access rights and service providers supports the connected car scenario within a proven standards-based security framework. Home-grown security mechanisms with-out broad public and expert review are fraught with risks, but they can be avoided here.

Integrating APIs with the connected car is not just about up-leveling its pre-cursor – the old, worn key fob that is just a rudimentary security token using point-to-point radio signals or proximity tech-nology. Rather, it is about completely replacing that fob with integrated, cloud-based APIs that can actually mediate the connection between owners and vehicles. This means that those cloud-based APIs have to be available regardless of the location of the owner or the vehicle.

Deploying a secure global API requires more than just a web server dishing up JSON. Separate facilities must authorise vehicles, drivers, temporary users like mechanics (and the life cycle of their access), the token infrastructure that binds it all together, the data warehouse that the APIs feed, and the analytics that consume the data. Connected cars, ❸, and the APIs that support them, it seems, are actually part of a broader transform-ative business initiative.

This new level of internet-enabled con-nectivity between cars and owners cre-ates a unique scalability puzzle – parti-cularly around data replication and data security – and APIs are a key piece of that puzzle. The right APIs, properly secured and scalable, will make the connected car a viable reality tomorrow in the way that web retail on mobile devices is a reality today.

REFERENCE[1] GSMA: Connected Car Forecast. In: Global Connected Car Market to Grow Threefold Within Five Years, Whitepaper, p. 2. (2012)

❸ The car is now itself a mobile device which the driver moves about in his or her personalised online world

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