ZERO-TRUST CYBERSECURE CELLULAR VEHICLE-TO-ANYTHING (V2X) FOR AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Cellular vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communications enable the exchange of real-time traffic and safety data between vehicles and everything around them (other vehicles, network infrastructure) using cellular networking technology. This pathbreaking off-board connectivity empowers vehicles to collaboratively detect potential hazards much earlier and coordinate to avoid collisions or unsafe traffic conditions. However, C-V2X is vulnerable to a broad range of security threats due to the broadcast nature of the wireless medium, and malicious actors can easily induce fatal incidents. In this SBIR Phase I effort, Tiami, LLC, proposes to design a zero-trust cybersecurity architecture tailored to C-V2X communications. The goal is to prevent a multitude of attacks such as broadcast message spoofing, man-in-the-middle, denial-of-service, and SyncRef timing reference spoofing on connected vehicles. We will develop and evaluate the zero-trust framework in Phase 1 and demonstrate a prototype system in Phase 2. This effort is related to the Automated Vehicles and AV Communications project within the NIST Communications Technology Laboratory.