Lightweight Authentication for Low-End Control Units with Hardware Based Individual Keys

Abstract

In autonomous driving, security issues from robotic and automotive applications are converging toward each other. A novel approach for deriving secret keys using a lightweight cipher in the firmware of low-end control units is introduced. By evaluating the method on a typical low-end automotive platform, we demonstrate the reusability of the cipher for message authentication. The proposed solution counteracts a known security issue in the robotics and automotive domain.