Cybersecurity is becoming a fundamental concern for the development of autonomous vehicle (AV) systems, as attacks can have serious consequences for autonomous electric vehicles and can put human lives at risk. Software attacks include data-driven decisions negatively impacting the autonomy of EVs and compromising the benefits of autonomous cars. AVs have seen many recent advances, with the integration of technologies like edge computing, private 5G, and high-performance processing units. In autonomous EVs, edge computing helps process the high volume of data at the edge to reduce latency and help vehicles make data-driven decisions in real time. Edge sensors deployed in vehicles have the scarcity of resources but require high computational power to process data.

Ahead of next week's Symposium on the Future Networked Car, ITU News caught up with Chaesub Lee, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, to learn more about the need for international standards to driving digital transformation in the automotive industry. What are the key issues to be discussed at next week's symposium? One key focus will be the discussion of where we stand today and what it will take, going forward, for connected cars and autonomous driving to earn public trust. We will look at automotive cybersecurity, with regulators sharing insight into new regulations from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on Cybersecurity (UN Regulation 155) and Software Updates (UN Regulation 156). We will also look at people's current perceptions and future expectations about autonomous driving.

With cars becoming more connected and autonomous, cybersecurity is a constant worry for automakers. They dread the likelihood of intrusions into the connected car from hackers, terrorists, extortionists, and thieves (see "Your Future Self-Driving Car Will Be Way More Hackable")--not to mention the random 12-year-old with mischief in mind. Apprehensions about automotive cybersecurity came to a head when a pair of white-hat hackers broke into a Jeep Cherokee in 2015, leading to the recall of 1.4 million vehicles by Chrysler Fiat to fix a software bug in the Uconnect infotainment system (see "Carmakers Accelerate Security Efforts after Hacking Stunts"). Cars represent a fundamentally different sort of security challenge from laptops, servers, or mobile phones, in which corruption or theft of data is the hacker's objective. A cyber-attack on a moving vehicle may create a deadly safety hazard, and conventional antihacking software could be too slow or ineffective to avert an incident.