Detroit, MI – rinf.tech, an international technology consultancy headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, announces collaboration with NXP® Semiconductors, a global semiconductor company, to develop a connected vehicle cybersecurity application backed by Bitdefender’s Security Agent.  

As the global connected vehicle market evolves at a rapid pace, cybersecurity challenges are becoming increasingly complex. Daily, autonomous and connected cars generate terabytes of data about driver locations and habits, billing details, and vehicle performance, increasing the risks of cyber threats. A growing number of data breaches and other cybersecurity incidents are pushing manufacturers to prioritize security and privacy in their connected car designs. 

To contribute to the much-needed infrastructure of the current automotive cybersecurity landscape, rinf.tech looked to NXP’s soon-to-be-launched OrangeBox. OrangeBox is an advanced automotive connectivity platform to be released in the coming months, and provides the necessary hardware capabilities and central connectivity to build out a cybersecurity agent that helps protect autonomous vehicles and connected devices from bad actors. 

Commenting on this solution, Andrei Filimon, Technical Director – Automotive Unit at rinf.tech, said:  

“This solution became possible via the vision that NXP had in creating OrangeBox for the market. We developed our original version using the NXP i.MX 8QuadXPlus Multisensory Enablement Kit, which allowed us to prove the concept we’d created with Bitdefender. OrangeBox will allow us to extend this solution in some really compelling ways, creating an Automotive Security Agent that can be offered to the market to help keep connected vehicles significantly safer.” 

The Automotive Security Agent uses Bitdefender’s state-of-the-art security solution, integrated in the connected vehicle environment via rinf.tech’s automotive engineering expertise and close collaboration with the Bitdefender team. The solution helps protect software-defined vehicles from ransomware, malicious attacks, data breaches related to sensitive information, such as payments, tracking and navigation, and helps reduce driver safety incidents. 

The solution is expected to significantly benefit:  

• Individual consumers who benefit from the peace of mind of having a secured connected vehicle 
• Insurance companies seeking solutions to minimize the difficult-to-quantify risks of cybersecurity attacks on connected vehicles 
• OEMs looking to differentiate based on security, minimize risk to the end consumer, and integrate a solution that generates recurring revenue  

“NXP views the OrangeBox platform as the heart of the connected car and software defined vehicle of the future, where state of the art cybersecurity will play a major role,” commented Jim Bridgwater, Director, Global Product Marketing, Automotive Edge Processing with NXP. “Collaborating with rinf.tech and Bitdefender will bring a long-established and trusted cybersecurity solution to our OrangeBox software ecosystem.“ 

As the launch of NXP’s OrangeBox approaches, NXP and rinf.tech are working together to ensure a smooth migration to the updated hardware and capabilities present in the OrangeBox. 

Dan Berte, Director, IoT Security at Bitdefender said, “We are excited for the opportunity to demonstrate, along with rinf.tech, revolutionary security technology for in-vehicle infotainment and hotspot protection including parental controls on the NXP OrangeBox platform. This milestone puts in motion Bitdefender’s plan to be an innovation leader in the growing automotive cybersec market.” 

Further extensions have been planned for the solution and will be deployed in the next project iterations. The product vision includes connectivity support covering multiple connection types, trusted app and whitelisting management through backend, user identity and access management, device registration access management, and more.  

rinf.tech, NXP, and Bitdefender will present the vehicular cybersecurity solution at NXP Tech Days Detroit on 7-8 November 2023.