Attacks on Flex-Ray Protocol by Altering the Timestamp Configuration of the Network

The acceptance of smart vehicles has greatly increased among the public because of their promise of safe, smooth, and effective driving experiences. They cooperate with the driver in making instant decisions while navigating through other vehicles and roadside equipment. The electrical control units (ECUs) in these vehicles, however, are vulnerable to the attacks of malicious activities. The paper provides clear evidence, through simulation examples done in CANoe Vector, that communication via FlexRay protocol is vulnerable to spoofing attacks. By damaging the operation of microtricks and macroticks, whose task is to synchronize the communication message time slots, the conducting of the spoofing attacks was possible. The simulation results have cleared that the attacker would be able to take over the vehicle by manipulating the timestamp and content of the message so that it would reach the legitimate device ahead of the original sender.