SaFe: A Blockchain and Secure Element Based Framework for Safeguarding Smart Vehicles

In the context of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), smart vehicles have become increasingly complex. Electronic Control Units (ECU) within smart vehicles are now capable of performing intricate operations which ensures reliable functioning of the smart vehicle even in emergency situations. However, these ECU(s) lack a trusted execution/storage environment (TEE/TSE). This makes it vulnerable to many security issues. In this paper, we propose a Blockchain and Secure Element(SE) based framework for smart vehicles called SaFe in which ECU(s) use SE for TEE and TSE. We justify the use of blockchain by showing how it securely facilitates application management on SE when ECU needs are changed. Leveraging on SaFe, we introduce the concept of non-repudiable responsibility. We present our realized framework and testbed based on NXP IMX6Q, Multos M5-P19, MultiChain. Finally, we show through our experimental results that how SaFe improves the performance of safety-critical operations within ECU by as much as 85%, all this while guaranteeing increased security, tamperproofness, immutability and reduced memory, storage, processing overhead.