BlackBerry CEO John Chen recently appeared at the North American International Automotive Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, to present the organization’s most recent security product for the connected car space. BlackBerry announced another service called Jarvis that helps automakers test the code they’re using to fight security flaws. Jarvis uses a system known as static analysis to find bugs in the application binaries clients feed it. That ought give automakers a chance to discover those bugs before they are used by an attacker who would put travelers in danger.
“Connected and autonomous vehicles require some of the most complex software ever developed, creating a significant challenge for automakers that must ensure the code complies with industry and manufacturer-specific standards while simultaneously battle-hardening a very large and tempting attack surface for cyber criminals,” Chen said.
The pitch is that smart, connected autos are generally packaged with software segments, a lot of which are made by third-party providers spread over different levels. BlackBerry asserts that this sort of disseminated store network setup makes a requirement for software that can handle vulnerabilities in near real-time, to remain in front of potential threats and human error.
“We have begun Jarvis trials with several major automakers, including Jaguar Land Rover. We’ve been able to show the industry and the market that we are delivering on what we said we were going to do, and we’ve been doing quite well,” Chen said during his NAIAS keynote.
Jarvis will be accessible through a software-as-a-service model. Clients can pay for the framework according to how much data they need to scan in different packages. It is completely computerized, and BlackBerry hopes that will urge clients to scan their software more frequently, as opposed to manually checking it. In the future, BlackBerry could grow Jarvis to reach outside the car market, since different ventures like aviation, medicinal services, and defense could all make use of its static examination abilities.
