Research Projects

Here is a list of past and ongoing Research projects (and grants) that I am involved in (or Primary Instigator):

Attacking Vehicular Communications: Road-Map towards Secure Intelligent Transportation Systems (AVESTA)

AVESTA is a project approved within the Mobility for Growth program entitled VINNMER Marie Curie Incoming, with a duration of 2 years and a starting date September 2014. The project is co-funded by VINNOVA, a Swedish-based organization, and the EU through the Marie Curie Actions FP7-PEOPLE-2011-COFUND (GROWTH 291795)

Purpose and Objectives

To date, vehicular networks have not yet been adequately investigated from a penetration perspective, particularly with respect to identifying vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an adversary to remotely intrude C2X and in-vehicle communication protocols and services (e.g., using personal smart-phones). AVESTA addresses this challenge by mapping the most important existing malware threats and investigating in depth their applicability. This, in turn, will lead to the design of a comprehensive security architecture to be deployed with forthcoming ITS prototypes.

Impact and Results

AVESTA is expected to have a signicant impact in the aspect of having more secure ITS for efficient transport. It integrates technologies that cut across many diverse sectors, e.g., wireless, embedded microcontrollers, and thus the produced results could benet European researchers in these important areas. With this in hand, our insights will be also directly accessible to the ITS industry thanks to the rich network of collaborations of both host organizations. These efforts could in influence a wide range of automotive companies and benchmark any subsequent studies for ITS Sec.

Planned Design and Implementation

AVESTA is built on the collaboration between KTH (Sweden), and its NSS group, and Renault (France). Besides several publications, it is expected that produced results will be taken by the researchers and engineers of Renault for further investigation and experimentation. Since both partners are members of the C2C-CC and already collaborate in the leading FOT EU project in ITS security (PRESERVE), we will be able to do research with VC components that are currently under construction and engage in the analysis process for improving the security & privacy prole of the deployed system.

Participants

Giannetsos Athanasios (Research Scientist; Grant holder), KTH (Sweden) and its Networked Systems Security Group, led by Prof. Panos Papadimitratos at School of EE, and RENAULT (France)