Professor Richard Yu was recently awarded $974,000 from the Canadian Safety and Security Program to help enhance the cyber security of autonomous and connected vehicles in Canada. Photo: Chris Roussakis Ingenious - Winter 2018 5 prepare Canada to safely and effectively deploy cutting- edge technologies.” As with all technologies connected to the internet, autonomous vehicles are not immune to the risk of cyber- attacks. With that in mind, Yu’s research is partnered with Transport Canada and BlackBerry QNX, a subsidiary of BlackBerry, who will contribute to designing software that will make connected vehicles safer, more secure and more efficient. “We are pleased to support Carleton University in their research program to help secure connected and autonomous vehicles,” said John Wall (BEng/92), Senior Vice-President & Head of BlackBerry QNX (and Carleton alumnus). “BlackBerry QNX has taken a leadership role in the connected and autonomous vehicle software and security space and we look forward to sharing our real- world experience with Carleton University.” Fittingly, the CSSP’s support of Yu’s research was announced on the same day BlackBerry QNX hit the streets with its groundbreaking autonomous vehicle test at Ottawa’s Kanata North Technology Park. The event marked the first time in Canada an autonomous car has been tested on a public street while communicating with live city infrastructure, such as traffic lights and global position system (GPS) base stations. While the street itself was closed to regular traffic for the demonstration, crowds of spectators lined the roadway to get a glimpse of BlackBerry QNX’s proof of concept, signaling a healthy appetite among Canadians to get behind the wheel knowing they’ll rarely (and one day perhaps never) actually need to use it. Government support of autonomous driving in Canada has also risen steadily, as seen earlier this year when Ontario became the first province to set a regulatory framework permitting the testing of self-driving vehicles. However, while Yu welcomes the endorsement by the province, he explained that significant security challenges remain to be addressed before widespread deployment of intelligent transportation systems may begin. “Securing connected vehicles involves a range of unique new challenges,” he said. “As a critical infrastructure with inherent vulnerabilities, intelligent transportation systems will naturally attract malicious cyber-attacks, whether by means of hacked wireless transmissions or malware threats which might infect vehicles through internet connectivity.” In order to combat these issues, Yu’s research will study existing vulnerabilities of connected vehicles in order to develop solutions for the future in a number of key areas, including access control, security of communication links and devices, data validity, and vehicle and driver privacy. We are pleased to support Carleton University in their research program to help secure connected and autonomous vehicles