CONNECT

About the project

CONNECT addressed the convergence of security and safety in CCAM by assessing dynamic trust relationships and defining a trust reasoning framework based on which involved entities could establish trust for cooperatively executing safety-critical functions. This enabled both a) cyber-secure data sharing between data sources in the CCAM ecosystem that had no or insufficient pre-existing trust relationship, and b) outsourcing tasks to the MEC and cloud in a trustworthy way. Beyond the needs of functional safety, trustworthiness management should be included in CCAM’s security functionality solution for verifying trustworthiness of transmitting stations and infrastructure. CONNECT built upon and expanded the Zero Trust concept to tackle the issue of how to bootstrap vertical trust from the application, the execution environment and device hardware from the vehicle up to MEC and cloud environments. This included measuring the system when instantiating network functions and determining the integrity and origin of software. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), as sw- or hw-based security elements, were essential to establish a verifiable chain of trust throughout the entire application stack of the host vehicle, as well as protecting data in transit, at rest and in use. By coupling the Zero Trust security principle with the need of “Never Trust, Always Verify”, CONNECT bootstrapped vertical trust for all users, devices and systems in the CCAM ecosystem by enabling continuous authorization and authentication prior to be granted access to data or resources. Through TEE-enabled “Chip-to-Cloud”” assurances and verifiable chain of trust, CONNECT reached its full potential: not only did it mitigate risks stemming from the Zero Trust CCAM environment but also ensured resilience. This could make CONNECT the cornerstone of future smart transportation as it would usher new levels of safety and connectivity and bring vehicles even close to autonomy.