Smart Cars and Over-the-Air Updates

Smart cars have started taking over the world and, sooner rather than later, they might become the new normal in the automotive industry. Over-the-air software updates have been developed and established in the telecommunications industry and proven their worth. Their adaptation to the automotive industry has its challenges seeing as human lives are at stake there. A lot of work has been done to shorten the gap, so much so that this technology has already been applied to car models in the market sometimes successfully and others not. Until the gap is non-existent, there is still a lot to learn and improve on. This paper has described the advantages, threats and vulnerabilities tied to smart cars and over-the-air updates; it has gathered a list of existing solutions to them and a short examination of the situation in today’s relevant research and industry.