"What is Keeping Automotive Software Developers up at Night?"

Security researchers at Perforce Software released the results of its annual State of Automotive Software Development survey conducted in partnership with Automotive IQ.  Close to 600 automotive development professionals across the globe provided responses to current practices and emerging trends within the industry.  The researchers stated that key findings suggest a growing concern for automotive software security while the automotive vehicle market continues to evolve rapidly.  The increasing amount of software installed in vehicles can lead to more safety and security considerations during the development process.  In fact, 76% of automotive developers have adopted or are in the process of adopting a shift-left strategy to identify software security and safety vulnerabilities as early as possible.  The researchers also found that automotive developers’ top three leading concerns are safety (34%, a decrease of 9% from last year), security (27%, an increase of 5% over last year), and quality (25%, a rise of 4% over last year).  Of those most concerned with safety, 46% said their biggest concerns are the difficulties and time required to fulfill every ISO 26262 requirement.  The researchers stated that autonomous, semi-autonomous, electric, and connected vehicle development is also significantly impacting development teams.  The majority of teams are working on autonomous and semi-autonomous components (82%, an increase of 38% over last year), electric components (87%, an increase of 39% over last year), and connectivity components (83%, an increase of 34% over last year) to some degree.  Another notable finding was that 86% use a coding standard to ensure safe, secure, and reliable code, with 46% of those surveyed using a static code analysis tool to aid in compliance, and 31% use a SAST tool to ensure secure software.

Help Net Security reports: "What is Keeping Automotive Software Developers up at Night?"