The "under-screen battle" among giants is more than just a fight over the ability to stand in line.

If the battle of mobile phone systems initiated by the iPhone has already ended, then the battle of in-vehicle systems has already begun. Earlier, Zebra Network released Zebra Smart Driving 5.0 and AliOS ecological open strategy, and the WeChat in-vehicle version was also publicly demonstrated for the first time at the Chongqing Smart Expo. The "battle of the gods" of in-vehicle systems may be about to begin...

Are we really ready for the arrival of intelligent connected cars?

In the early 21st century, the concept of "intelligent networking" had not yet appeared. Multimedia functions such as CD players and radios were perhaps the few configurations that reflected "intelligence", and the sluggishness of early car navigation was widely criticized.

The fourth-generation BMW 7 Series (E65) was first equipped with iDrive, developed jointly by BMW and Microsoft. This intelligent driving control system is considered the ancestor of intelligent network systems, but it has been criticized for being complicated to use and not suitable for operation while driving because it must be operated through a knob.

It was Tesla that broke the deadlock. The emergence of Tesla is no different from the debut of the iPhone back then. Various basic entertainment systems, navigation, charging settings and other functions can be achieved through a tablet, which was unimaginable before.

Just like the competition between iOS, Android, Symbian and Window Phone, all the players participating in the competition of in-vehicle systems are coming on the stage: Banma Zhixing, Android Automotive OS, Baidu Apollo...

The emergence of intelligent vehicle systems has opened the door to the era of intelligent networking of automobiles, but there are also hidden risks behind this door. When a car is connected to the Internet, it means that it has the possibility of being "hacked".

In the current smart car systems, such as Zebra Smart Driving and Android Automotive OS, they are strictly speaking "infotainment systems", that is, in-vehicle entertainment systems, and the vulnerabilities of in-vehicle entertainment systems are precisely the most easily exploited by hackers.

The target is the ultra-long-range "sniping" of car hackers

Because of this, vulnerabilities in in-vehicle entertainment systems have always been a key target for hacker attacks.

In 2015, a famous "white hat hacker" used a vulnerability in the vehicle system to implant a firmware with a virus into a Cherokee, sending commands to the CAN bus to remotely take over the vehicle's acceleration, braking and steering, which led to Chrysler's emergency global recall of 1.4 million vehicles. This also became the first large-scale car recall caused by hacker intrusion.

In fact, smart vehicle systems are developing rapidly, but the related protection measures have not kept pace.

According to the research report "Automotive Big Data Application" released by China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd., the Internet of Vehicles security standard system has not yet been established, many core technologies for Internet of Vehicles security are still to be developed, the Internet of Vehicles security supervision mechanism and technical support system are not yet clear, and the overall Internet of Vehicles security industry is basically in its infancy.

In this situation, how terrible it is when hackers invade ordinary people's cars at will?

In a paper on how cybercrime affects the real world, a research team from Georgia Institute of Technology simulated a scenario like this: One day, when you are driving out, your car suddenly brakes by itself, and no matter how you control it, it doesn't respond. What's more serious is that all the cars on the street are controlled at the same time, and for a moment, traffic is completely paralyzed.

Where there are people, there are gangs, and where there are interfaces, there are hackers. With the advent of the Internet of Vehicles era, hackers invading cars is no longer a movie plot.

The "Global Automotive Industry Cybersecurity Report" released by the cybersecurity platform Upstream Security shows that the number of attacks on smart cars has surged sixfold from 2010 to 2018, and by 2023, automakers may lose $24 billion due to cyber hacker attacks.

The battle for smart car operating systems is raging, and the security competition in the Internet of Vehicles is no longer "calm."

The Tao is always one foot higher, so the devil is not scary.

China has no place in the competition for mobile phone systems. However, just as my country has entered the field of intelligent vehicle systems, Chinese companies are frequently appearing in the field of Internet of Vehicles security technology.

360 has been selected into Tesla's Hall of Fame three times, a record that has not been broken so far. In addition, the world's first Tesla car networking system was cracked by 360 in 2014. It is reported that 360 has also reached a cooperation with Mercedes-Benz to jointly improve the car information security capabilities through 360 Security Brain.

Improving safety protection technology is an important means, but it may be more important to ensure that the technology itself is reliable and effective when the safety system of intelligent connected vehicles is not standardized and the regulations are not sound enough.

In the communication between intelligent connected cars and the Internet of Vehicles, the first thing to ensure is a compliant, reasonable and secure communication mechanism for information transmission. Therefore, based on the mainstream commercial encryption algorithm, the identity identification and key management of intelligent connected cars through automobile big data can achieve two-way authentication of network communication, provide effective security protection and active defense for connected cars, and ensure the privacy and integrity of data.

In addition, starting from the key vulnerability library and core security detection technology, by developing and deploying special detection tools, black box testing, white box testing and gray box testing, it is possible to detect security risks in the body, modules, parts, protocols, etc. At present, China Automotive Research Institute is working on the development of Internet of Vehicles security encryption authentication technology and products and intelligent networked car security detection platform in order to deal with easily exposed security risks.

Undoubtedly, intelligence and networking are the inevitable trends in the development of the automobile industry. As of August this year, the new four modernization index of the overall passenger car market has increased month-on-month to the highest point in nearly a year, of which the intelligence index and networking index account for the vast majority.

In the future, the intelligent networking level of existing smart cars will be further developed, and the matching safety control technology and platform are the guarantee for the improvement of the intelligence level. Only when the worries are resolved can cars keep moving forward with the pace of science and technology, and the intelligent era will come.