To mark National Autonomous Vehicle Day, BlackBerry today announced they’ve joined the OmniAir Consortium as an executive member to help advance the testing, certification, and deployment of technologies for connected vehicles and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). BlackBerry successfully demonstrated the interoperability of its V2X certificates at the May 2018 OmniAir MotorCity PlugFest.
V2X communication is the next frontier of connected car capability, allowing for real-time communication between vehicles, road-side equipment, city infrastructure, and smart devices. V2X connectivity provides information to enable safer driving, thereby helping to prevent accidents, reduce congestion and lower emissions through optimized mobility and improved traffic coordination. The success of V2X technology, however, depends on cybersecurity and the trusted verification of each and every message that is sent or received between and among cars and things like traffic lights or road signs. The system must be designed so that hackers cannot harm the public interest by modifying V2X messages in transit from certified devices.
BlackBerry’s security credential management system (SCMS) will be available in Fall 2018, it will secure the communication of vehicles with each other and with roadside equipment in two ways: digital signatures, which protect messages against manipulation, and certificates, which identify the sender as trustworthy.
BlackBerry’s SCMS will enable OEMs, suppliers, municipal infrastructure makers and roadside equipment manufacturers to implement V2X security protocols in their automotive embedded systems. Connected vehicles and devices will be able to enroll in the SCMS, obtain security certificates from authorized Certificate Authorities and use those certificates to sign V2X messages.
“The future of connected vehicles relies on secure communication between vehicles and city infrastructure, other vehicles, and smart devices,” said Jim Alfred, vice president and GM of BlackBerry Certicom. “In order to realize this potential, cars need to talk to one another and to their environment in the same language and with the same protocols to ensure they can trust that communication. The new security credential management system we are announcing today will enhance the security, trustworthiness, and ultimately the safety of V2X communications.”
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