The Technology
With the ever evolving connectivity and functionality of devices, systems, infrastructures and/or the like, cyber-attacks and cyber threats may present a major and ever growing security concern for multiple networks, systems and infrastructures. Potential malicious attackers may penetrate a network either by connecting to the network and/or by taking over one or more devices connected to the network and intercept and/or inject malicious data to the network. One of the major methods to detect, prevent and/or circumvent such cyber threats is message authentication in which the origin of a message is authenticated as the valid legitimate member of the network as opposed to a potential attacker and/or a compromised member of the network. The developed technology is a system for authenticating messages transmitted on a bus based on physical location of transmitting units, comprising a reflector adapted to inject a plurality of reflection signals at a first point of a line topology bus, each in response to each of a plurality of messages transmitted by a plurality of bus connected units and a probe adapted to intercept the messages and the reflection signals at a second point of the bus. The probe calculates propagation timing between a reception time of the message and a reception time of an associated reflection signal transmitted in response to the message and determines validity of the message according to a match between the calculated propagation timing and a predefined propagation timings associated with the bus connected units. Wherein the bus connected units are statically connected to the bus between the first point and the second point.
Advantages
- Easy message authentication with minimal overhead
- Location-based authentication significantly reduces complexity of the bus units which may be relived of supporting cryptographic abilities which are typically extensive
- Bus bandwidth utilization (traffic) may be maintained as in normal bus operation
- Allows connection of legacy bus units to bus deployments incorporating the probe and reflector for the message origin location based authentication
Applications and Opportunities
- Protecting transportation against cyber threats
Business Development Contacts