Pro-CHASER: A Prototype Testbed for Car Hacking Attack Simulation and Evaluation Using Raspberry Pi to Investigate Threat Landscape

Recent advancements in transportation technology have necessitated a seamless integration of sensors, cameras, and communication protocols for autonomous vehicles. Ensuring cybersecurity for these vehicles has become critical, as they are vulnerable to attacks that could jeopardize safety and performance. While machine learning and deep learning models could be developed to address cybersecurity issues in autonomous vehicles, developing these models requires large datasets for training. Obtaining real-world data from actual vehicles also presents significant challenges. To address these limitations, a low-cost Pro-CHASER testbed— Prototype testbed for Car Hacking Attack Simulation and Evaluation using Raspberry Pi—was developed using a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus network with CAN-HAT (Hardware Attached on Top). This testbed utilized CAN to simulate autonomous vehicle functions and explore attack vectors. Microsoft Threat Modelling Tool, and MITRE ATT&CK framework were used to identify the vulnerabilities in the context of autonomous vehicles. The identified vulnerabilities were exploited using the designed testbed by employing many security testing tools to simulate CAN message injection attacks, USB exploits, and ROS-based fake image publisher attack. Through these attack simulations, the testbed functionalities were successfully compromised. The results demonstrated that message injection into the CAN bus manipulated sensor data that led to erroneous decision-making. Unauthorized access to the physical access points led to the injection of a malicious payload via a USB port. The computer vision system’s response to the false data ultimately compromised the vehicle’s perception and control. The findings highlight the capability of Pro-CHASER in identifying cyber security risks in autonomous vehicles, which offers a practical and low-cost platform for threat simulation and evaluation.