Low-Power Command Protection Using SHA-CRC Inversion-Based Scrambling Technique for CAN-Integrated Automotive Controllers

Automotive vehicles control car area network (CAN)-integrated electronic systems such as engine control unit (ECU) and adaptive front lighting system (AFLS) by using on-chip embedded software-driven commands through CAN interfaces. An attacker is now trying to probe these commands, and manipulate them to cause unwanted control of automotive movement. The system integrator then has to make an additional effort to hide the commands and protect the code against attacks on the CAN-enabled devices. In this paper, we propose a random code inversion and de-inversion technique based on a cycle redundancy check (CRC) for secure hash algorithm (SHA)-based code sequences to protect CAN communication-driven commands and low-power command communication to reduce the number of bit toggles in command code. The proposed approach is evaluated for a custom automatic-driving test system, which is controlled by CAN-enabled interfaces.