Secure Gateway - A concept for an in-vehicle IP network bridging the infotainment and the safety critical domains

The Secure Gateway is a concept that addresses the need for applications to access the vehicle network and, at the same time, providing a protection for malicious or malfunctioning applications. The objectives are to provide access to the vehicle network from user-installed applications in the infotainment environment, in a secure and controlled way. As the infotainment domain is no longer confined to a single node, an in-vehicle IP (Internet Protocol) based subnet is used. The concept is based on standard technologies and is using a layered architecture, where the networking layer is the lowest level. The messaging layer consists of publish-subscribe messaging using the MQTT (MQ Telemetry Transport) protocol running via the Secure Gateway Core, consisting of a broker with custom add-ons. Communication is encrypted via TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates, and the broker handles access control to different MQTT message topics. The service layer consists of “resources” and “applications”, which are software abstraction of devices, and users of these resources, respectively. Presence information is handled for resources, which also enables plug-and-play installation of aftermarket additions. In the vehicle network adaptor the IP-network and the safety-critical network meet. There are no open (inbound) IP ports on the vehicle network adaptor.