Software Safety, Quality and Security in the Automotive Industry

Author: Céline Lüdtke, Sales and Marketing Assistant (Verifysoft Technology)

Safety-critical software for applications in the automotive-industry must be developed with the greatest care and quality. The share of software in vehicles is increasing annually. Because of the high risk of injury and death, the requirements for software development in the automotive industry are enormously high. Even without catastrophic outcomes, no developer or project-manager wants to be the origin of a vehicle-call-back caused by a software error.

While the topic of software safety and quality is evident in an industry where nearly every embedded system is safety critical. An error in the programming of an airbag as well as an error in the door locking mechanism can mean a loss in life.

Another vital aspect in software development for automotive industry is security. Due to increased digitalization, the growing popularity of autonomous driving and interconnectedness of these systems, security has become a major topic for the automotive industry today.

High-quality software is necessary so that the door of opportunity for hacking-attacks by cyber-criminals. Nowadays embedded programmers must protect their applications with command and string injections against structural attacks. In order to achieve this objective, their applications must be tested completely and thoroughly – through static analyses on source code as well as dynamic analyses concerning the running time of the application and binary analyses on source and third-party components.