Authentication of Electronic Control Unit using Arbiter Physical Unclonable Functions in Modern Automobiles
Aishwarya, Farha Syed, Jaya Nupur, Aishwarya Vichare, Arun Mishra · 2016
Automobiles gradually favors computers on wheels-complete with various advance safety facilities such as emergency brake assist, safety belts, airbags, Tire-pressure monitoring, etc. Internally automobiles consist of 70 and above Electronic Control Units (ECUs), which communicate with each other using in-vehicle network example- Controller Area Network (CAN). The real time communication between the ECUs via CAN protocol is responsible for supervising safety related issues of car such as an automatic braking system, etc. There is no source ECU authentication in this protocol which leads to various security concerns because safety is futile without security. Security of the car can be compromised by connecting malicious ECU in CAN. Malicious ECU ejecting malign commands can threaten the functioning of steering, brakes, airbags, windows, headlights, etc. This gives rise to safety concern of people in and around the car. To avoid this, we propose a system, which authenticate the ECUs before allowing them to perform any function. The proposed authentication system consists of Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) and BCH. PUF known for its physical and mathematical unclonability is used to provide a unique signature to the system. On giving a challenge for n times it generates n random response, having closeness within them. This closeness is validated by calculating their hamming distance. The response of PUF is prone to noise, hence to remove these noises proposed approach uses BCH. For a challenge, the noise free response being generated is measured for closeness using hamming distance. If the closeness measured is enough, then the ECU is authentic, else it is suspected as malign.