The damaging effects of cyberattacks to an industry like the Cooperative Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) can be tremendous. From the least important to the worst ones, one can mention for example the damage in the reputation of vehicle manufacturers, the increased denial of customers to adopt CCAM, the loss of working hours (having direct impact on the European GDP), material damages, increased environmental pollution due e.g., to traffic jams or malicious modifications in sensors’ firmware, and ultimately, the great danger for human lives, either they are drivers, passengers or pedestrians.

Connected vehicles will soon become a reality on our roads, bringing along new services and capabilities, but also technical challenges and security threats. To overcome these risks, the CARAMEL project has developed several anti-hacking solutions for the new generation of vehicles.

CARAMEL (Artificial Intelligence-based Cybersecurity for Connected and Automated Vehicles), a research project co-funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 framework programme, is a project consortium with 15 organizations from 8 European countries together with 3 Korean partners. The project applies a proactive approach based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques to detect and prevent potential cybersecurity threats to autonomous and connected vehicles. This approach has been addressed based on four fundamental pillars, namely: Autonomous Mobility, Connected Mobility, Electromobility, and Remote Control Vehicle. This book presents theory and results from each of these technical directions.

https://nowpublishers.com/article/BookDetails/9781638280606

After an incredible 33 months of work in the CARAMEL project, the consortium had the opportunity to hold its final review. The event was held virtually and organized by the CARAMEL’s project officer.

The selected reviewers as well as representatives from each of the consortium members also participated in this event. During the activities of this meeting, the technical experts presented the results obtained by the project. Each of these results was explained in detail by the responsible partners.

Although this meeting was conducted virtually, it was possible to give video demonstrations of the CARAMEL project in action for each pillar of the project.

On 25 August 2022, the CARAMEL project held its final review meeting to evaluate the project’s outcomes.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the European Commission who acted as evaluators, the CARAMEL project officer and representatives of each CARAMEL consortium member company.
Presentations relevant to each of the work packages were made during the meeting. In which the work carried out in the following areas can be highlighted.

• Overall project technical update – Four pillars
• Anti Hacking Device
• Backend Solution

Pillar 4

• Remote Control Vehicle activities

Pillar 1

• Physical Layer-Attack on Traffic Signs
• Cyber-Attacks on Camera Sensor
• Mitigate attacks on camera sensors using LiDAR
• Location Spoofing Attack
• Robust scene analysis and understanding via multimodal fusion
• Detection and Mitigation of Image Deterioration Attacks on Autonomous Vehicle Camera Sensors

Pillar 2

• Radio Interoperability, Secure Communications, Privacy Issues,
• HW OBU design and HW & SW OBU securitization
• Public Key Infrastructure
• Collaboration mitigation and detection mechanism against GPS spoofing
• In-vehicle Location Spoofing Attack Detection

Pillar 3

• Smart Charging Abuse
• Smart Charging Anomaly detection

* Elements of this picture by rawpixel.com on Freepik

On June 21, the CARAMEL project presented to a panel of external observers the results in the area of cybersecurity for autonomous vehicles that have been developed since the beginning of the CARAMEL project.

The demonstration took place at Panasonic’s facilities in Langen (Hessen) in Germany. Representatives of most of the CARAMEL consortium members attended the meeting, which was attended by approximately 30 people, including external observers.

The activities of June 21 were consolidated into 2 sections, the first half of the day consisted of a technical presentation of the developments to be presented in a live demonstration. During the second part of the day, the technical part and the demonstrations were presented through simulations.

The first section of the day started with a welcome message offered by the organizers of the event (Panasonic Automotive) and by the project coordinator who also presented a technical summary of the project.

After the incredible introduction to the project, we proceeded to the technical explanation of the pillars 1 and 2 that would be presented technically in a live demonstration and with the vehicle in motion in an area of Panasonic prepared for such experiments.

The live demonstration topics correspond to the following:

• Cyberthreat Detection and Response Techniques (Panasonic)
• V2X interoperability (i2cat)
• Revocation of certificates (Atos)
• OBU HW antitampering (Nextium)
• CARAMEL backend (Capgemini)

Once the live presentation was over, all the participants met near the conference area to socialize while the food was offered.

The second part of the day took place in the conference room prepared for simulation demonstrations.

Each member had the opportunity to present the results of their research and integrations in mitigating cyber attacks on autonomous vehicles.

The topics were subdivided into the pillars addressed by the project.

Pillar 4: Remote Control Vehicle activities presentation

• Intrusion detection and estimation algorithm in the Gateway & RCV controller

Pillar 1: Autonomous mobility simulations

• Location Spoofing attack (AVL)
• Robust scene analysis and understanding via multimodal fusion (UPAT)
• DriveGuard countering camera attacks against autonomous vehicles (UCY)
• Traffic sign tampering detection and mitigation (0Inf)

Pillar 2: Connected Mobility

• Attack on the V2X Message Transmission  (i2cat)
• OBU HW antitampering (Nextium)
• Certificate Revocation (Atos)
• Collaborative GPS Spoofing (UPAT)
• Holisitc Situational Awareness with ML Application

Pillar 3: Electromobility

• Remote detection of cyber attacks on EV Charge Stations from cloud back office (Greenflux)

It only remains to say that we appreciate the participation of each of the attendees at this event, thank you for your excellent participation.  To the readers, we would like to invite you to follow us on our official channels to keep up with the latest news on the project.

During the IoT Solutions World Congress 2022 CARAMEL partners organised a recorded a video webinar that explain some of the most important outcomes of the project.

In such Webinar the CARAMEL’s project coordinator gave a small introduction to introduce the 4 main pillars addressed by the project, after which members of the project presented the innovations being demonstrated as part of the CARAMEL testbed.

This webinar is accessible from CARAMEL’s Youtube channel.

As part of the final demonstration activities to be presented in Frankfurt prior to the final review. A series of preparation activities were carried out at the project’s technical demonstration facilities.

During these 2 days, different integration activities were carried out aiming to avoid or identify and mitigate any kind of adverse situation during the final demonstration. The antennas were integrated to provide interoperability between the different radio communication technologies targeted by the project. The OBU modules that contain the security mechanism against hardware modification were tested. Additionally, the project members integrated the communication from the anti-hacking device with the CARAMEL backend. This backend service communication can collect, analyse and inform other devices about threats detected previously by the connected vehicles. This whole ecosystem of technology allows strengthening the idea that would allow the future to achieve safe roads for connected vehicles.

The CARAMEL project had a successful participation in the activities of the IoTS WC, thanks to the participation of more than 400 people who were interested in the project and who were offered a personalised explanation through the official project tours or the individual conversation, to inform them about the most outstanding results of the project.

We are grateful for the participation of all the members of the consortium who prepared the videos shown during the days of the congress. We highlight the participation of I2Cat, Capgemini, Panasonic, Atos and Nextium who had the opportunity to be in the testbed offering specific information about the project to each of the visitors to the CARAMEL testbed.

It is relevant to mention that thanks to the participation in this event we were able to establish communication with several cybersecurity organisations through which we will look for future collaboration opportunities.

We appreciate the participation of each visitor because without their visit the CARAMEL testbed demonstration would not have been the same.

We invite you to follow the official project channels where we share the latest news and upcoming events of the project.

H2020 Caramel Project (@caramel_project) / Twitter

https://www.linkedin.com/company/13066014

Today is being held the CARAMELs 21st general assembly among all members of the consortium. After some months of reluctance to have these live conversations, it is the first face-to-face meeting.

The meeting takes place on the premises of the University of Cyprus, in the library. (Learning Resource Centre – Library “Stelios Ioannou”) Aglantzia, Nicosia.

In this meeting, the project focuses on organising the activities necessary to carry out the final demonstrations of the project, i.e. the participation of the IoTS WC as well as during the final evaluation.

It is also planned to synchronise the activities carried out during the duration of the project so that they are completed on time.

One of the objectives of CARAMEL focuses on designing and implementing detection and response techniques based on artificial intelligence and multimodal fusion of sensors available on autonomous vehicles to mitigate attacks on autonomous vehicles.

During this event the CARAMEL project participated in the discussion session dedicated to providing a platform for discussion of opportunities and collaborations for innovation and research in Europe, in which the project’s technical coordinator Peter Hofmann took part in the important panel session “The Good, the Bad and the Trendy of Multi-Partner Research Projects in Europe”. Although the conference was originally scheduled to be held in a face-to-face format, it had to be reorganised at short notice to an online format.

Besides the presentation of CARAMEL project a CARAMEL paper was presented as part of conference’s activities

A Comprehensive Solution for Securing Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

1. What makes the project concept unique?
   In the CARAMEL project, we strive to implement machine-learning based detection of attacks against the connected and/or autonomous vehicle by analysing sensor data, V2X data, and the status of embedded controllers like the OBU (on-board unit) in real-time using a tamper-proof device that directly integrated into the car – the anti-hacking device (AHD). This architecture and concept are novel and innovative, and CARAMEL is the first project to implement and demonstrate this.
2. What project outcomes can be of use to the DATE 2022 community?
   Even as CARAMEL implements its concepts and architectures in the automotive space, the key CARAMEL innovations are transferable to other IoT and Embedded applications domains as well, such as factory floors, building automation systems or others. Therefore, the CARAMEL presentation and presence of CARAMEL representatives during the conference would be of value to the DATE 2022 community.
3. What inputs (solutions) are expected from the DATE 2022 community?
   In the CARAMEL project, several integration options for the anti-hacking device based on different IoT devices have been pursued already. However, for the concept to be commercially viable and cost-effective, the concept of a machine-learning-based intrusion device must be even better integrated into commercial offerings for the Automotive and IoT market. The DATE 2022 community could provide valuable input for that endeavour.
4. What new research topics and trends does the project introduce?
   CCAM and IoT both will face important security challenges in the future as bad actors discover these new areas for their activities. Since bad actors will use machine learning to subvert machine-learning-based processes and algorithms in the CCAM and IoT world (eg. using Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)), a trend in the security industry is also to use machine learning to detect and counter these attacks. The CARAMEL project showcases this approach in the Automotive context.

Project partners:

• Fundació Privada i2CAT, Internet i Innovació digital a Catalunya, Spain
• DEUTSCHE TELEKOM SECURITY GMBH, Germany
• ALTRAN DEUTSCHLAND SAS & CO KG, Germany
• EIGHT BELLS LTD, Cyprus
• UBIWHERE LDA, Portugal
• CYBERLENS BV, Netherlands
• GREENFLUX ASSETS BV, Netherlands
• SIDROCO HOLDINGS LIMITED, Cyprus
• 0 INFINITY LIMITED, UK
• UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS, Cyprus
• University of Patras, Greece
• Idneo Technologies SAU, Spain
• AVL LIST GmbH, Austria
• PANASONIC AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS EUROPE GMBH, Germany
• ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, South Korea
• KOREA AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE, South Korea
• MOBIGEN CO LTD, Republic of Korea
• ATOS IT SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES IBERIA SL, Spain

The DATE2022 conference is intended as a meeting point for researchers, software and hardware designers, manufacturers of electronic circuitry, among others, to focus on technology and systems.

During this event the CARAMEL project participated in the discussion session dedicated to providing a platform for discussion of opportunities and collaborations for innovation and research in Europe, in which the project’s technical coordinator Peter Hofmann took part in the panel session “The Good, the Bad and the Trendy of Multi-Partner Research Projects in Europe“.

Although the conference initially had to be held face-to-face, it had to be reorganized in the short term towards an online format.