Safety Without Security Is an Illusion in the Age of Autonomous Vehicles

The safety/security equation has changed, and in the era of autonomous, connected vehicles, trust must be engineered from silicon to cloud to ensure true resilience against both malfunction and malicious attack.

By Hassan Triqui, Secure IC
EETimes Europe | June 13, 2025 

As the automotive industry pushes toward Level 4 and Level 5 autonomy, the convergence of functional safety and cybersecurity is no longer theoretical; it is operational. A malfunction may cause damage; a cyberattack may cause disaster. The two domains are now inextricably linked. There is no safety without security.

This new reality demands a fundamental redesign of the automotive value chain. Safety-critical systems cannot rely solely on isolated certifications or static design milestones. Security must be integrated from the chip level to the cloud—from the individual electronic control unit to the fleet level—because autonomous vehicles are not standalone machines; they are nodes in a hyperconnected, evolving ecosystem.

Trust must begin at the silicon level

Autonomous vehicles are effectively rolling data centers with real-time mission-critical functions. To ensure their integrity, hardware-based roots of trust must anchor the entire system. These hardware enclaves provide the foundational assurance needed to secure boot sequences, cryptographic operations, and isolation of sensitive processes.

As system architectures grow more complex, many next-generation automotive SoCs are adopting chiplet-based designs, bringing together modular silicon components within a single package. This evolution introduces new security requirements: Each chiplet must be individually authenticated during system boot and must maintain secure, verified communication with neighboring chiplets. Ensuring a trusted chain of custody among chiplets is essential to preserving end-to-end system integrity, especially in safety-critical domains such as braking, steering, or autonomous navigation.

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