Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of Securing Internet of Autonomous Vehicles With Lightweight Authentication

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be defined as the network of physical objects, or “things,” embedded with sensors and software for processing and exchanging data with other devices and ecosystems using the Internet as a medium. With its rapid growth over the past decade, it has permeated several application domains, including intelligent vehicular systems. The Internet of Autonomous Vehicles (IoAV) is a subset of IoT that envisions dynamic autonomous driving without human intervention. The dynamic nature of the environment in which autonomous vehicles operate introduces significant challenges, such as real-time communication and security vulnerabilities. These challenges cannot be directly addressed by standard cybersecurity solutions designed primarily for static IoT environments. In this work, we outline the various vulnerabilities of the IoAV systems, and we delve into the critical importance of adopting lightweight security protocols. These protocols are crucial to ensure robust protection while at the same time not jeopardizing the performance of the IoAV system. We also highlight the fast lightweight security protocols implemented on heterogeneous embedded, low-power, high-performance computing platforms as a viable solution to address these challenges.