Ni Desak Putu Widyanti Darmika’s MIS304

Self-Driving Cars or driver-less cars will essentially disrupt society and is said to be the future of our technology. The self-driving car is a vehicle innovation that does not require human intervention or physical navigation on its operation because this innovation has used a combination of artificial intelligence in running the car (Rouse, 2019). The self-driving cars promise a variety of potential benefits to our life that can change our lifestyle. This disruptive technology gives more potential benefits in providing road safety since self-driving cars have a system that can reduce human error in car crashes. Moreover, people who have limitation for example, people who have a disability even for those who cannot drive a car before, with this technology they only need to sit and the automatic system will operate it. In addition, driver-less car becomes important because it can save our money in the term of fuel cost, the cost of crashes, and the cost of insurance. Not only that, self-driving car give a significant impact to our environment because it can reduce the carbon emissions from the fuel uses. However, if we see from the other sides, there are some hidden threats that can harm the driver of self-driving cars in term of cybersecurity threats and technology malfunctions.

• Cybersecurity Threats

As one of the Internet of Things (IoT), the self-driving car’s feature can help the drivers to navigate the traffic roads automatically, make quick decisions through connectivity, and also potentially become a new target for cyber criminality. The driver-less car uses software and high sensor technology in responding and detecting the environment when driving an autonomous vehicle, including laser light, radar, GPS, camera to capture the visual around the car, and of course a computer vision (Causevic, 2018). We can say that driver-less cars are a combination of network components both inside the car itself and the system that controls from outside of the car. Related to this condition, criminal hackers become one of the cybersecurity threats of drivers. In order to bring their service, self-driving cars rely on the wide-ranging sensor where a computer will become the brains of each operation. Just like other devices supported by computers, criminals can easily hack the car’s operating system that can disrupt the operation of the car itself. The hackers can take control of the system to threaten the safety of the drivers (Elezaj, 2019). For example, the hackers can stop the vehicle in the middle of the road suddenly or increase the speed of the car by using their computer and it will cause an accident. Not only controlling the vehicle’s system, but the hackers also can threaten the personal information of the drivers. In the self-driving car’s system, the driver will input some personal information including home address, office address, even the system can know our last destination. Moreover, the self-driving car also contains GPS to track our destination. It can threaten the driver from any assault or robbery because the hackers can know our current location. Even, if the hacker has been able to break into the vehicle information system, they can sell the user’s information and maybe they will ask a ransom to users of self-driving cars. These cybersecurity threats are certainly very frightening for the users and will cause many losses for them.

• Technology Malfunctions

In carrying out its functions, self-driving cars not only require one computer, but more than 30 computers or even reach 100 computers that should stay connected to each other (Technology.org, 2019). In this case, there is still a possibility the computer system that controls the car’s operations may have an unexpected malfunction or we can say there might be some programming codes that are wrong. The computer malfunctions will be fatal when the user is driving a car at high speed that might lead to a severe accident. In addition, one of the challenges faced by software engineers is controlling software that connected to self-driving cars in dealing with various kinds of problems on the road, especially in changing weather conditions. For example, during heavy rain, the laser sensor device located above the car might be disrupted. This will certainly have an impact on the navigation of self-driving cars itself because with this sensor, the car can find out the conditions around automatically. Not only in the heavy rain, but the self-driving cars will also face problems when it snows. Snow may cover some sensor cameras, so the visuals that will be captured by the car will not work properly. Malfunction systems can also be found in quick decision making in one condition (Technology.org, 2019). For example, when self-driving cars are faced with two bad choices in the possibility of an accident that is choosing to crash into another car or pedestrian. There may be errors in entering instructions for this type of situation, so the car will choose to hit pedestrians who do not use security at all. According to the cases, we can see that minor malfunction or even just a very small error to the system would cause a dangerous failure for the driver itself includes a fatal accident. It happens because self-driving cars only depend on a combination of hardware and software that are interconnected each other.

All in all, the existence of self-driving cars or driver-less cars have the potential to be an incredible innovation in the future of human life. However, we should not only look at the positive aspects, but we must watch carefully the negative aspects that may be caused by self-driving car’s system such as cybersecurity threats and technology malfunctions. Related to the negative threats, self-driving cars should be renewed, this can be done by giant auto companies like Tesla, Waymo, or BMW by investing more in the manufacture of self-driving cars so that they can become a perfect reality in our life. In addition, the large number of cybersecurity threats does not rule out the possibility for Autonomous Vehicles (AV) developers to create and strengthen cybersecurity plans for both vehicles and their users. AV developers can also build a partnership with cybersecurity experts to improve the operational standard in this IoT era. Not only that, but AV developers also need to give more attention on the design of the car that is able to secure the software in the car itself. Additional infrastructure design on the car will protect software or hardware that has significant functions in the operation of self-driving cars such as radar, sensors, and cameras from unexpected conditions such as weather changes during snow or heavy rain. Lastly, with the development of AV, developers have to stay focused on the safety of the drivers, so the drivers will feel comfortable.

List of References:

Causevic, D. (2018). How Machine Learning Can Enhance Cybersecurity for Autonomous Cars. Retrieved February 2020, from Toptal: https://www.toptal.com/insights/innovation/how-machine-learning-can-enhance-cybersecurity-for-autonomous-cars

Elezaj, R. (2019, July 16). Autonomous Cars: Safety Opportunity or Cybersecurity Threat? Retrieved February 2020, from Machine Design: https://www.machinedesign.com/mechanical-motion-systems/article/21837958/autonomous-cars-safety-opportunity-or-cybersecurity-threat

Rouse, M. (2019, October). Self-driving car (autonomous car or driverless car). Retrieved February 2020, from Search Enterprise AI: https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/definition/driverless-car

Technology.org. (2019, February 26). Top 5 Dangers of Self-Driving Cars. Retrieved February 2020, from Technology.org: https://www.technology.org/2019/02/26/top-5-dangers-of-self-driving-cars/

Hi, I’m Ni Desak Putu Widyanti Darmika, my nickname is Widya. I’m one of the undergraduate students from Sampoerna University who still pursuing my double degree program at the University of Arizona, United State. In this program, I’m majoring in business administration. I created this site to complete my assignment and provide you guys with some information regarding cybersecurity threats and technology malfunctions in self-driving cars. I hope you will get new insight about self-driving cars as one of technology innovation in this era.

Thank you.