Automotive Software Safety and Security Still Needs Improvement

This article has been indexed from Security Boulevard

A recent blog post, “Automotive software defects”, from Phil Koopman, Carnegie Mellon professor and author of “Better Embedded Software”, talks about increasing number of software defects in automotive software that are significant safety hazards. The post points out an increase in potentially life-threatening software defects being reported yet there is a general resistance in the industry to dealing with the quality, safety and security of the software.

As Koopman points out, “…at least some of these recalls sure look like mistakes that simply should not be happening in life critical software.” The post contains a list of recent NHTSA safety recalls related to software defects. Koopman is clear that isn’t to shame any particular manufacturer but rather “…the point is that safety critical software defects are both pervasive and persistent across the automotive industry… does not instill confidence about life critical software in a self-certifying industry that in the US is not required to follow international software safety standards.”

Notable Examples

Koopman’s blog contains a fairly long list of identified issues that have become NHTSA recalls, signifying that the problem is a significant enough safety hazard to warrant a recall. Here’s some examples that are directly related to faulty software: