Vehicle Feature Attestation Using TEE for Unauthorized Activation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vehicle owners face challenges in activating and modifying vehicle features due to the control of OEMs over software and firmware, lacking a trusted computing framework to ensure secure updates and prevent malicious modifications.
Innovation Solution
A remote attestation method and system using a trusted execution environment to detect and authorize vehicle feature activations, involving a trusted application that monitors configuration changes and generates reports on feature authorization, with a secure flag and attestation module to ensure integrity and prevent unauthorized modifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If OEMs maintain control over software and firmware to prevent unauthorized modifications, then vehicle security and intellectual property protection are improved, but vehicle owners lose the ability to activate and modify features freely
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a trusted execution environment (TEE) as an intermediary between the OEM's security requirements and the vehicle owner's feature activation needs. The TEE acts as a mediator that can verify the authenticity of feature activations while allowing legitimate modifications, thus resolving the contradiction between security control and operational freedom.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the vehicle's computing environment into a trusted execution environment (secure zone) and a non-trusted environment (general zone). This segmentation allows different levels of access and control: the TEE handles security-critical operations while the non-TEE handles regular feature activations, enabling both security and flexibility simultaneously.
2Reliability
If a trusted computing framework is implemented to ensure secure updates, then software integrity and protection against malicious code are improved, but system complexity and implementation difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The trusted execution environment is nested within the existing vehicle's electronic control unit architecture. The TEE is implemented as a secure enclave within the broader ECU system, allowing the trusted computing framework to operate within the existing hardware boundaries without requiring a complete system redesign, thus reducing implementation complexity.
3Reliability
If the OEM provides services for future repairs and upgrades through controlled feature activation, then long-term vehicle support and security are improved, but vehicle owners face limitations in modifying their own vehicles
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts access rights and activation permissions based on verification results. When a feature activation request is received, the system dynamically evaluates it against security policies stored in the TEE, allowing legitimate modifications while maintaining security controls. This dynamic approach enables both OEM-supported upgrades and owner-initiated modifications under verified conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods for attestation of a vehicle feature associated with a vehicle control unit are provided and include: detecting, using a trusted application, whether a configurable feature has been activated based on one or more detection models; periodically detecting during runtime, using each of the one or more detection models, whether the configurable feature is activated; generating a report of attestation results indicating that the configurable feature is one of: activated and unauthorized; activated and authorized; un-activated and authorized; and un-activated and unauthorized; determining whether an activated feature is unauthorized, wherein the activated feature is the configurable feature that has been detected as being activated; and activating a response mechanism and restoring the configurable feature of the vehicle to an inactive state in response to the activated feature being unauthorized.