Functional Safety and Cybersecurity Improvement Areas in Automotive: An Empirical Study

Over the last decade, there has been an exponential increase in software-driven functions embedded in vehicles. In such a scenario, demands and needs regarding Functional Safety assurance have grown in criticality and complexity. As new- generation vehicles are characterized by high connectivity and autonomy, Functional Safety concerns can no longer be disjointed from Cybersecurity implications. To face such a situation, the automotive community has made enormous efforts to define methodologies, set up technologies, and enforce its culture. This paper presents the outcomes of an empirical study performed with the aim of identifying the current Functional Safety and Cybersecurity improvement areas in automotive software-intensive systems development. The study, conducted through an online questionnaire on a selected sample of automotive players, provided some interesting indications on which areas need to be improved the most. The results of the study show that the main improvement needs are related to methodologies deployed, tools in use, skills, and organizational structure for Cybersecurity and Integrated Functional Safety and Cybersecurity practices. In particular, the improvement need is higher for management aspects than engineering ones. We observed also that the need for improvement is markedly higher for small/medium companies than large ones.