BlackBerry chief security officer Alexa Manea says the more connected and autonomous cars there are on the road, the more attractive they become to hackers.

Speaking to GearBrain at the Geneva Motor Show this week, Manea also explained how the automotive industry needs to lay the right foundations for connected and self-driving cars to keep their future occupants safe. He believes there is value in expanding crash tests to include analysis of a car's cybersecurity systems alongside its crash structure and pedestrian safety devices.

Manea says there are two points of view regarding concerns over connected car hacking. "One is the doomsday scenario [as demonstrated when a Jeep was remotely hacked while being driven in 2015], and one is that everything is fine, we shouldn't worry about it, instead just enjoy the benefits of connected vehicles. The truth is somewhere in between. There's going to be a lot of great benefits from self-driving cars, but at the same time, there's a lot of risks there."

Before we go any further, we should explain that this is the same BlackBerry that gave birth to the smartphone before being shot out of the sky by Apple, Google, and Samsung. The company still sells business-focused smartphones in small numbers but also works in the automotive space, developing the backend of car infotainment systems with its QNX software. This business interest is now expanding to capitalize on the growing interest in connected and autonomous vehicles.

Firstly, Manea puts our minds at ease. "The reality is that hacking vehicles is non-trivial; it's very difficult. For instance, with the Jeep hack, the researchers had to spend six months and a year reverse-engineering all protocols...From a hacker's standpoint, you're not going to spend that much time hacking a vehicle unless you get a good return on investment."

Vehicle cybersecurity needs to be treated in the same way crash structures and airbags are, Manea saysiStock

However, as more connected and autonomous vehicles take to the public roads, the target offered to hackers - and the potential reward for compromising them - increases, just as it did when other devices like computers and smartphones became popular. "The more of these vehicles that we put on the road, the more it starts making sense for hackers to start attacking them," Manea warned.

He added: "What I worry about in-car hacking is large-scale hacks from criminal and terrorist organizations or nation-state type hacks. Those can devastate us in the future, and if we want to prevent those types of long-term attacks, we need to put the right foundation today."

Manea agrees that that foundation could lie in expanding today's crash tests to challenge a vehicle's cybersecurity and resistance to hacking and its ability to brake autonomously in an emergency and deploy airbags in a crash.

Manea told GearBrain, "Today, we have car safety ratings, so when I buy a car, I know it has a 5-star front impact rating, for instance. I can see a situation in the future where we have those same types of security ratings. As we know, security and safety are starting to come together."

Finally, the BlackBerry executive believes car cybersecurity will be kept up-to-date like smartphones are today - with over-the-air software updates. It is already used by Tesla and confirmed for the new Jaguar I-Pace. "We need secure, over-the-air software updates for cars. The way car recalls are done these days is inefficient. For me, we must get those OTA updates done on every car to lay that foundation for a secure future."

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