The automotive industry is facing a major transformation over the next decade. Currently, industry megatrends, such as autonomous driving and data-driven applications, are providing opportunities for automakers to develop and sell new features. Other megatrends, such as shared mobility, are creating new business models for automakers, fleets, and suppliers. Despite such tremendous opportunity, the increasing complexity of passenger cars and commercial vehicles is bringing an abundance of challenges for automakers, including increased vehicle development investment and the need to reduce warranty claim costs, assure safety and cybersecurity, and more.
To meet these requirements, SafeRide Technologies has developed AI-based vehicle health monitoring technology that provides automakers, fleet operators, and automotive suppliers early detection of malfunctions, degradation of performance, and zero-day cyber-attacks.
Developing Innovative Solutions, Successful Evaluation
Headquartered in Tel-Aviv, Israel, SafeRide is a leading provider of multi-layer cybersecurity and data analytics solutions for connected and autonomous vehicles. Utilizing recent advancements in vehicle computing capabilities and in machine learning and deep learning technology, the company develops cutting edge solutions that help car manufacturers and fleet owners improve operational efficiency, reduce warranty costs, maximize vehicle uptime, avoid financial damage, prevent reputation loss, and save lives.
At the core of SafeRide’s products is an AI engine that monitors all the internal signals on the vehicle network and establishes the normal behavior of the vehicle. After the expected behavior is established, the machine learning models accurately detect, categorize, and flag any abnormal behavior and report it in real-time. The SafeRide solution can detect unknown anomalies that could not be detected before, thereby enabling enhanced predictive maintenance, performance optimization, and zero-day intrusion detection.
Furthermore, the advanced automotive tech company has built machine-learning-based data compression technology for vehicle data that provides over 96% reduction in data bandwidth, which is more than 6 times better than any other solution on the market. Numerous world-class automotive companies, including the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance and other car manufacturers and automotive suppliers, have successfully evaluated SafeRide’s products.
Robust Product Portfolio
SafeRide’s robust product line provides secure edge to cloud vehicle health monitoring and data analytics capabilities and includes the following products: vSentry™ Edge AI, vSentry™ AI, vSentry™ CAN Optimizer, and vSentry™ Core.
- vSentry™ Edge AI is an embedded and real-time vehicle health monitoring software solution. It provides valuable cybersecurity, predictive maintenance, and vehicle performance insights to automakers. vSentry Edge AI can help automakers reduce warranty claims costs, improve vehicle development costs, and detect zero-day cyberattacks. It can work on multiple chipsets used for central gateways and domain controllers. For example, SafeRide partnered with NXP Semiconductors to integrate the software into NXP’s vehicle network processors. SafeRide and NXP recently demonstrated the integrated solution at the Consumer Electronics Show, where it was well-received by worldwide automakers and automotive suppliers. The company is currently working with several automakers and automotive suppliers to integrate vSentry Edge AI into their next-generation automotive platforms. One of these customers plans to deploy the SafeRide solution on a 1000-vehicle test fleet this year.
- vSentry™ AI is a cloud-based solution for fleet-level health monitoring. It combines vehicle level insights across the fleet to improve detection, classification, and prioritization of alerts. vSentry AI is designed to seamlessly integrate with the customer’s backend infrastructure and with Security Operations Centers (SOC) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions.
- vSentry™ CAN Optimizer is SafeRide’s AI-based vehicle data compression solution. This solution offers efficient data delivery to the cloud and enables multiple big-data analytics applications. SafeRide’s customers are using CAN Optimizer for a number of different use cases, such as delivering vehicle data to the Digital Twin – a virtual cloud replica of the vehicle that enables them to more precisely monitor and optimize the performance of their connected vehicles and fleets. OEMs and fleet owners are also using CAN Optimizer for remote diagnostics to more deeply analyze vehicle malfunctions, usage-based analytics to better understand the real-world usage of their vehicle’s functions and features, and in-vehicle data storage to reduce memory and download frequency requirements.
- vSentry™ Core is a host-based cybersecurity software suite for connected electronic control units (ECU). It offers multi-layer policy-based, real-time, and zero false-positive protections for connectivity, networks, and software. This solution detects, mitigates, logs and reports security events. vSentry Core is designed for Linux-based ECUs such as Infotainment ECUs, Telematics Control Modules and Connected Gateways. This solution provides advanced protection for connected and software-heavy ECUs where the cyber threat risk is high.
A Seasoned Leader Behind SafeRide’s Success
The key driver behind the success of SafeRide is CEO and Co-founder, Yossi Vardi. For over 22 years, he has led the business development, marketing and sales of enterprise-grade, and cutting-edge cybersecurity products. Yossi has a remarkable amount of experience in all continents and many cultures. Because of his open mind and ‘can do’ attitude, he has established a vast number of strategic relationships with key decision-makers and market shakers around the world.
Being a prominent figure in the industry, Yossi believes that the one of the toughest challenges is convincing customers to invest to protect their vehicles from unknown future cybersecurity threats. He asserts that “SafeRide provides an overall vehicle health monitoring capability, on top of intrusion detection, which strengthens the value proposition and helps automakers to better justify the investment in the solution.”
A Unique Technical Approach
Unlike many automotive technology companies, SafeRide began with a holistic cybersecurity approach that was based on a positive security model and AI-based analytics. As CTO and Co-Founder, Hilik Stein, explains, “Most of the competing solutions on the market were focused on modeling negative security behavior (i.e., viruses, attacks, threats, etc.). SafeRide’s approach was to model the positive, normal behavior and then look for anomalies. The benefit of our approach is that the normal behavior is usually more static, better defined, and much more controllable.”
In addition to providing a more robust and future-proof cybersecurity solution, SafeRide’s approach also enabled the company to innovate and become a leader in vehicle health monitoring technology. Not surprisingly, the same approach that SafeRide was using to detect cybersecurity anomalies could also be used to detect vehicle health anomalies. As Hilik recalls, “Initially we were concerned that non-cybersecurity anomalies could be detected as false positives by our cybersecurity solution. However, we quickly discovered that those false positives were just as valuable, if not more valuable, than cybersecurity events.”
By leveraging their expertise in AI-based cybersecurity solutions, SafeRide has been able to leapfrog the competition and develop world-class vehicle health monitoring technology.
A Culture Filled With Freedom
The team is always considered one of the pillars of the success of an organization. At SafeRide, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking are the two prominent key values. The company offers employees the freedom to explore new ideas as well as encourages challenge and open discussion. It also hires the right people and collaborates with other companies to deliver the best results. CEO Yossi says, “I keep telling our people: do not just think out of the box – think there is no box at all.”
A company receives many awards and accolades when it works with a combination of creativity and hard work, and SafeRide is no exception. In 2019, SafeRide earned the prestigious TU-Automotive Award for the best AI/Data product. The company was also selected as a strategic partner of the AUTO-ISAC global cybersecurity alliance in recognition of its contributions in the area of AI technology for intrusion detection.
The Future of the Automotive Industry
The automotive industry will be dominated by connected and autonomous vehicles in the future. The complexity of vehicles will increase as car manufacturers and fleet owners add more service-oriented applications to the car, allowing them to generate a recurring revenue stream. Moreover, cost containment and resilience to cyberthreats will become critical business enablers. Amidst these changes, SafeRide’s AI technology for vehicle health monitoring will gain even more market traction and will become a key enabler for economical connected and autonomous vehicles.
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