Karamba Security Awarded Best Automotive Cyber Security Product

author: Eric Walz   

Karamba Security, a provider of autonomous cyber security solutions for connected and autonomous vehicles, was just awarded Best Auto Cyber security Product/Service by TU-Automotive. The judges unanimously selected Karamba at the TU-Automotive Detroit Conference and Exhibition held in Michigan this week.

The 2017 TU-Automotive Awards winners were judged based on the following criteria Innovation, Industry Engagement, UX, and Market Update. "The judges appreciated the Karamba Autonomous Security product because it showed a new and interesting approach. They also highlighted the fact that this product solves a concrete problem at a low cost," said Gareth Ragg, managing director at TU-Automotive.

How Karamba "Carwall" Security Works

Karamba's software locks down the vehicle's ECU's factory settings, preventing the execution of any programs that deviate from those settings. When Carwall automatically generates an ECU's security policy, based on its factory settings, it creates a call graph mapping all acceptable calling relationships. Based on the vehicle's ECU's unique call graph, Carwall inspects binaries in runtime to determine if they've been hijacked from their expected, factory-based, calling sequence and if so, blocks the exploit attempt.

Carwall checks every function call in real time, to see whether the call complies with a path mapped out in the vehicle's factory settings. When a hacker makes an in-memory attack to manipulate a process, that process is necessarily now outside the call graph. Carwall runs its check, sees the noncompliance, and stops the call. Carwall doesn't fix the security bugs in a vehicle's code, it prevents their exploitation by permitting only operations that comply with a vehicle's ECU factory settings to run.

Karamba Security was selected for its innovative approach that is based on a vehicle's factory settings, and blocks hacking attempts if they deviate from them.. This deterministic approach ensures consumer safety by preventing the attack before hackers succeed to infiltrate the car and pose any risk.

"We are proud and honored to accept TU-Automotive's Best Auto Cybersecurity Product for 2017," said Ami Dotan, Karamba Security's CEO and co-founder. "Adding to the broad market demand we are experiencing, the award is another indication of the automotive industry's vote of confidence that our solutions best meet the need to prevent cyberattacks before hackers succeed in infiltrating the car.

We will continue to keep consumer safety our top priority by providing cyber prevention with zero false positives and negligible performance impact. "Security is definitely top-of-mind among car companies as an enabler for autonomous driving, which is expected to be 15 percent of all shipped cars in 2020 and 70 percent of all shipped cars in 2025, according to Sam Abuelsamid, Navigant senior research analyst.

Since coming out of stealth mode at the end of March 2016, the company has been actively engaged with 16 different projects throughout the industry with car manufacturers and Tier-1 providers. So far, the company has received $17M in funding, including $12M in May. In addition, Karamba was recognized with the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Automotive New Product Innovation.

Eric Walz

Originally from New Jersey, Eric is a automotive & technology reporter covering the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley. Eric has over 15 years of automotive experience and a bachelors degree in computer science. These skills, combined with technical writing and news reporting, allows him to fully understand and identify new and innovative technologies in the auto industry and beyond. He has worked at Uber on self-driving cars and as a technical writer, helping people to understand and work with technology. Outside of work, Eric likes to travel to new places, play guitar, and explore the outdoors.