What question did this study set out to answer?

To establish a framework for vehicle penetration tests that assess the security of cyber physical systems.

February 22, 2026Open Access

A Framework for Vehicle Penetration Tests

EBElisa Bragaglia WNWalter Nesci CSCosimo SenniUniversity of Bologna

Key Points

To establish a framework for vehicle penetration tests that assess the security of cyber physical systems.
Identify generic and specific attack types
Utilize knowledge of vehicle's electric and electronic architecture
Conduct tests involving crafted viruses against vehicle systems
Generate reports summarizing attack outcomes and associated risks
Framework successfully applied to various vehicles including motorbikes and passenger cars
Potential vulnerabilities highlighted through testing
Reports provide actionable insights into security risks

Abstract

We propose a framework for vehicle penetration tests. Vehicle penetration tests are here intended as tests aimed to analyze the security of the Cyber Physical systems integrated in vehicles. The framework proposed here is based on two types of attacks: generic, i.e. not depending on the vehicle, and specific, i.e. depending on the vehicle. This framework has a large field of application: it has been successfully used on motorbikes, passenger cars and commercial vehicles.It is assumed that some information on the vehicle are available (Electric and Electronic architecture description and networks descriptions) and that the tester has full access to the vehicle. Access to the vehicle is used to craft and test viruses interacting with vehicle Cyber Physical systems.The output of a penetration test done using this framework is a report summarizing attacks and their risk.

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