# A Hybrid-Cryptography Engine for Securing Intra-Vehicle Communications
## 1 Introduction
### The EMERGE Project  
The EMERGE project ([[http://exemerge.disim.univaq.it/?page%20](http://exemerge.disim.univaq.it/?page%20) id=342]([http://exemerge.disim.univaq.it/?page%20](http://exemerge.disim.univaq.it/?page%20) id=342) (accessed on 27 November 2023)) is an industrial research and innovation initiative co-funded by the Ministry of Economic Development of Italy and is targeted to design and prototype advanced on-board units for connected and geo-localized vehicles along with services of connected and cooperative navigation. The specific innovation goals refer to (i) a high accuracy and high integrity geo-localization module that integrates a multi-frequency and multi-constellation global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver, the support of augmentation networks and the fusion of on-board sensors' data; (ii) a heterogeneous on-board communications module that includes 5G connectivity, V2X sidelink communications and satellite connectivity; (iii) state-of-the-art cryptography and cyber-security solutions for connected vehicles that are supposed to comply to stringent safety requirements [5].  
The novel on-board platform is intended to drive the development of a new generation of light commercial vehicles, which are conceived for dual-use (last mile good delivery and emergency operations), since their inception: in this perspective the EMERGE project, which includes large companies such as Leonardo and Telespazio other than research institutions, which embeds the development of a prototype of cooperative navigation service targeted to a small fleet of vehicles [6; 7]. As already stated, two operating modes are envisaged and tested: \"_every day_\" and \"_in emergency situations_\". The related use cases, referring to the \"electronic horizon\" and cooperative navigation, resort to the large amount of data that are collected from the road scenario thanks to the on-board platforms which is then aggregated, stored, and elaborated on a _Mobile Edge Computing_ (MEC) or cloud-based architecture; the latter one hosts specific algorithms based on machine learning for the prompt detection of events (accidents, traffic jams,...) and individual re-planning of routes for the fleet elements. The developed service components are considered as enabling modules of Level 3 automated driving.  
When focusing on the specific assets of cyber-security of EMERGE, we first focused on passive security by designing an innovative asymmetric encryption schemes where protection levels are aligned to the automotive industry standards: in particular, we considered the ISO/DAE ISO/SAE 21434 [8], i.e., the emerging standard related to cyber-security in the automotive domain, and adopted a service-oriented paradigm of authentication and encryption services created by a centralized cryptographic engine that exposes standard interfaces towards the networked components regardless of their technical-manufacturing characteristics.  
In the depicted context, this paper highlights the solution adopted in EMERGE for securing the intra-vehicle networks, the Crypto-Engine: it exploits state-of-the-art hybrid cryptography to build a platform that is shown to provide robust encryption/decryption of intra-vehicle communications and authentication of intra-vehicle components (e.g., ECUs).