How Trustworthy are Over-The-Air (OTA) Updates for Autonomous Vehicles (AV) to Ensure Public Safety?: A Threat Model-based Security Analysis

The rise of autonomous vehicles (AV) has transformed our transportation sectors in recent years. The evolution of technology has made AVs more popular among users. The Over-The-Air (OTA) updates for AVs are widely adopted by the AV industry. These updates are used to deliver improved functionality and security patches to ensure public safety. However, this system is susceptible to security threats since the wireless communication link between the car, the manufacturer, and the cloud-based web server is inherently insecure. While there are studies that explored multiple cybersecurity frameworks and tools for OTA updates, many challenges remain unaddressed. To build a robust trustworthy system, we need to perform a thorough security analysis by creating a threat model. In this study, we use the CIAA and STRIDE threat modeling process to analyze the OTA updates security. Our analysis demonstrates numerous dangers and vulnerabilities. To increase the security of OTA updates, we also suggest several corrective mitigation steps.