"Student Hackers Take Control, Learn How to Protect Transportation Infrastructure"
Jake Jepson, a master's student in the Department of Systems Engineering at Colorado State University, is aware of how vulnerable cars can be because he and his peers practice taking control of them via cyberattacks. Jepson is a member of the Systems Cyber Research Group, which collaborates with automakers, trade organizations, and governments to improve in-vehicle networks and cybersecurity. This group is led by associate professor Jeremy Daily and uses a hands-on approach to vehicle cybersecurity. Cyber systems are especially vulnerable to attacks when their different components come from various manufacturers, who are not always able to assess the security compatibility of one component with the others. According to Jepson, it is more difficult for manufacturers to ensure the security of their own systems when connected components are sourced externally. Components from various manufacturers may work well together, but small misalignments could lead to security flaws. Jepson's most recent study has been on developing a program that enables users to connect different end-product components over a network to demonstrate their combined security. This is the subject of Jepson's paper, titled "CANLay: A Network Virtualized Testbed for Vehicle Systems – Improving System Integration and Verification Efforts," co-authored with Daily and fellow graduate students Subhojeet Mukherjee and US Air Force Maj. Trae Span. This article continues to discuss the work on improving vehicle cybersecurity.