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GuardKnox Cyber Technologies: Products and Solutions for the Automotive Market

Moshe Shlisel

CEO and Co-Founder


"We are proud to have such outstanding investors support our vision and are confident they will bring immense value to the company. "

The evolution of automotive software nowadays involves software components (SWCs) that are offered by Tier 1 suppliers and are installed on more than 100 electronic control units (ECUs) in a typical contemporary vehicle. A complicated network of various networking protocols and communication formats links these ECUs together. When all of these SWCs are combined, a monolithic SW block is created that is challenging to manage and takes a lot of effort. Retesting of the complete package is necessary for any modification to any SWC. Such a bundle often caters to a certain automobile type and cannot include customer-specific features. After a vehicle leaves the factory, applications, features, and functionalities are hardly ever added or changed. A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that implements features, applications, and functions as services that communicate over well-defined message-based interfaces is the answer to this issue. The Secure SOA Framework from GuardKnox is a cutting-edge method for managing the software creation, upkeep, and distribution phases of the automobile SW product life cycle. The framework is made up of many parts that serve as middleware between the operating system (OS) and programs that offer or use services (functions).

GuardKnox is credited with developing the strategy of applying a deterministic model of cybersecurity prevention, a zero-trust approach that leaves no room for unanticipated communication by routing, content, and contextual layers of all messages entering cars' networks. The GuardKnox system promptly rejects any messages it receives that are not marked as approved. "The automotive industry is experiencing massive disruption from emerging technologies," says Moshe Shlisel, CEO and Co-Founder of GuardKnox. "Paired with increasing customer expectations, companies are under immense pressure to meet client needs and desires for added services while also providing security solutions that keep pace with passenger safety and data security as well as the ever-changing regulatory environment. We are solving a critical industry pain point and believe our approach to high-performance hardware architecture and secured ECUs is the best way for companies to ensure the safety of their connected and autonomous vehicles. We are proud to have such outstanding investors support our vision and are confident they will bring immense value to the company. "

Maximum flexibility and dynamic management of individual SWCs are made possible by GuardKnox's Secure SOA, which results in a decoupling of the SWCs from the runtime environment and HW. It offers a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) solution suitable for automotive use, which was first developed for business software environments. The next generation of software-defined and service-oriented cars can be delivered by OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and the aftermarket thanks to GuardKnox, the automotive industry's first cyber tech Tier Supplier. Increased connectivity, Zonal E/E Architecture, hosted applications, high-speed routing (including network recovery and service discovery functions), vehicle customization, and security are all made possible by GuardKnox's adaptable and scalable solutions.

The functionality of several ECUs is being consolidated using zone-and domain-centered arrangements in automotive E/E topologies, allowing manufacturers to minimize the size and weight of the cabling harness. Although a microcontroller and Ethernet switch combination can be employed in zonal routers, such a design soon causes time and routing issues. This is because a zonal design necessitates the transmission of signals or messages via several hops, whose latencies then accumulate. As a result, end-to-end latencies can easily surpass the system's thresholds, particularly in the case of unforeseen swings. GuardKnox’s CommEngine™ is single-chip solution that implements Zonal Gateway (Zone Controller) functionality and enables high-performance and economical communication routing. The safe and secure design addresses current automotive demands in connection and scalability by performing routing activities utilizing hardware to provide ultra-low latency with multi-gigabit capacity.

The software-defined vehicle and next-generation E/E architectures are flexible and scalable owing to Guardknox's unique Communication LockdownTM technique for automotive cybersecurity, which removes risks to the safety and security of the vehicle and its occupants. This is accomplished by using a three-layer tiering method to enforce a formally validated and predictable configuration of communication across the vehicle's multiple networks. The Communication Lockdown Methodology may be used to safeguard individual ECUs locally, as a distributed and coordinated solution throughout the network, or as a centralized solution for all internal network communication. It results in the consolidation of software, a decrease in complexity, simpler certification processes, and overall cost savings. GuardKnox has the expertise necessary to produce safe, high-performance computing systems utilizing a proprietary Service-Oriented Architecture because of the company's innovative approach to automotive innovation, which is inspired by technology from the aviation sector (SOA).