February 13, 2024
Keio University
Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
While autonomous driving technology holds the potential to significantly transform our future society, improving its safety is essential. It is crucial to identify and resolve vulnerabilities at an early stage. Senior Assistant Professor Kentaro Yoshioka of the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, in collaboration with Assistant Professor Alfred Chen of the University of California, Irvine, and Takami Sato, a student in the Doctoral Programs at the same university, conducted the first comprehensive security survey focusing on the vulnerabilities of sensors for autonomous driving, revealing what countermeasures are necessary.
In this study, a comprehensive vulnerability assessment was conducted on nine types of LiDAR sensors, both old and new, demonstrating the practicality of a new attack method, the "HFR (High-Frequency Laser Removal) attack." The results revealed that it is possible to cause object disappearance in various types of LiDAR sensors. These research findings sound a new alarm for the sensor security issues of autonomous vehicles and represent a significant step toward the development of defensive measures, promising to enhance the safety of autonomous driving.
The results of this research were accepted and published at "Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS)," a top international conference in the security field, beginning February 26, 2024 (US Pacific Time). The vulnerabilities identified in this study have been shared with each LiDAR manufacturer, and these research findings are being disclosed after a certain period for countermeasures.
Please see below for the full press release.