OCTANE: An Extensible Open Source Car Security Testbed

Security research and training using cyber-physical systems (e.g., automotive networks) is challenging because of the need to replicate the interactions between the hardware components and the control software of the systems. These interactions are challenging to replicate due to dynamic inputs in real-world environments that cause various interactions of hardware components and control software within the network. In particular, automotive networks are challenging for security research and training because although the protocols of the automotive networks are standardized (e.g., CAN, LIN), the implementation details by each automotive manufacturer are not standardized and are generally not publicly available. In this paper, we present OCTANE, which reduces the barrier of entry into the security research and training of automotive networks by providing a software package and a hardware framework for the reverse engineering and testing of automotive networks. OCTANE provides a platform for security research and training by replicating the interactions between the hardware components and control software of the systems so that the user can focus on the security aspects of the automotive network instead of the tool configuration and setup. In addition, OCTANE includes security focused features, such as the ability to replay and fuzz test different automotive network protocols. OCTANE will be released as an open source tool, which will enable the automotive security community to extend this tool to support future automotive protocols.