Secure access to vehicle electronic control unit (ecu)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2025385791-A1
Application number	US-202418742827-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 13, 2024
Priority date	Jun 13, 2024
Publication date	Dec 18, 2025
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method of supporting secure access to an electronic control unit (ECU) of a vehicle may comprise receiving, from a diagnostic tool connected to the vehicle, encrypted data including an ECU address corresponding to the ECU, vehicle identification information of the vehicle, and a security seed, decrypting the encrypted data, retrieving, from a database, an initialization vector based on the ECU address and the vehicle identification information, calculating a security key based on the initialization vector and the security seed using an application programming interface (API) associated with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the ECU, encrypting the security key, and sending the encrypted security key to the diagnostic tool to be decrypted and used by the diagnostic tool to gain secure access to the ECU.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method of supporting secure access to an electronic control unit (ECU) of a vehicle, the method comprising:
receiving, from a diagnostic tool connected to the vehicle, encrypted data including an ECU address corresponding to the ECU, vehicle identification information of the vehicle, and a security seed; decrypting the encrypted data; retrieving, from a database, an initialization vector based on the ECU address and the vehicle identification information; calculating a security key based on the initialization vector and the security seed using an application programming interface (API) associated with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the ECU; encrypting the security key; and sending the encrypted security key to the diagnostic tool to be decrypted and used by the diagnostic tool to gain secure access to the ECU.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the encrypted data further includes a global unique identification number (GUID) of the diagnostic tool, the method further comprising validating the GUID prior to retrieving the initialize vector from the database.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said retrieving the initialization vector from the database includes finding a match in the database corresponding to the ECU address and the vehicle identification information.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the vehicle identification information includes a year, make, and model of the vehicle.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said calculating is further based on an encrypted fixed byte associated with the initialization vector.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the method further comprises, prior to said calculating, decrypting the encrypted fixed byte using the initialization vector and a secret key.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein said decrypting, said retrieving, said calculating, said encrypting, and said sending proceed autonomously in response to said receiving.

8 . A computer program product comprising one or more non-transitory program storage media on which are stored instructions executable by one or more processors or programmable circuits to perform operations for supporting secure access to an electronic control unit (ECU) of a vehicle, the operations comprising:
receiving, from a diagnostic tool connected to the vehicle, encrypted data including an ECU address corresponding to the ECU, vehicle identification information of the vehicle, and a security seed; decrypting the encrypted data; retrieving, from a database, an initialization vector based on the ECU address and the vehicle identification information; calculating a security key based on the initialization vector and the security seed using an application programming interface (API) associated with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the ECU; encrypting the security key; and sending the encrypted security key to the diagnostic tool to be decrypted and used by the diagnostic tool to gain secure access to the ECU.

9 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the encrypted data further includes a global unique identification number (GUID) of the diagnostic tool, the operations further comprising validating the GUID prior to retrieving the initialize vector from the database.

10 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein said retrieving the initialization vector from the database includes finding a match in the database corresponding to the ECU address and the vehicle identification information.

11 . The computer program product of claim 10 , wherein the vehicle identification information includes a year, make, and model of the vehicle.

12 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein said calculating is further based on an encrypted fixed byte associated with the initialization vector.

13 . The computer program product of claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise, prior to said calculating, decrypting the encrypted fixed byte using the initialization vector and a secret key.

14 . A system for supporting secure access to an electronic control unit (ECU) of a vehicle, the system comprising:
a diagnostic tool operable to connect to the vehicle and to retrieve, from the vehicle, an ECU address corresponding to the ECU, vehicle identification information of the vehicle, and a security seed, the diagnostic tool further being operable to encrypt data including the ECU address, the vehicle identification information, and the security seed; and one or more servers operable to receive the encrypted data from the diagnostic tool, to decrypt the encrypted data, and to retrieve, from a database, an initialization vector based on the ECU address and the vehicle identification information, the one or more servers further being operable to calculate a security key based on the initialization vector and the security seed using an application programming interface (API) associated with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the ECU, to encrypt the security key, and to send the encrypted security key to the diagnostic tool to be decrypted and used by the diagnostic tool to gain secure access to the ECU.

15 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the encrypted data further includes a global unique identification number (GUID) of the diagnostic tool, the one or more servers further being operable to validate the GUID prior to retrieving the initialize vector from the database.

16 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the diagnostic tool is operable to encrypt the data including the ECU address, the vehicle identification information, the security seed, and the GUID and send the encrypted data to the one or more servers autonomously in response to retrieving the ECU address, the vehicle identification information, and the security seed from the vehicle.

17 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the retrieving of the initialization vector by the one or more servers includes finding a match in the database corresponding to the ECU address and the vehicle identification information.

18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the vehicle identification information includes a year, make, and model of the vehicle.

19 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the calculating of the security key by the one or more servers is further based on an encrypted fixed byte associated with the initialization vector.

20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the one or more servers is further operable to decrypt the encrypted fixed byte using the initialization vector and a secret key prior to calculating the security key.

21 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the diagnostic tool is operable to connect to the vehicle via a data port of the vehicle.

22 . A diagnostic tool for securely accessing an electronic control unit (ECU) of a vehicle, the diagnostic tool being operable to connect to the vehicle and retrieve, from the vehicle, an ECU address corresponding to the ECU, vehicle identification information of the vehicle, and a security seed, the diagnostic tool comprising one or more processors operable to encrypt data including the ECU address, the vehicle identification information, and the security seed and to send the encrypted data to one or more servers, the one or more processors being further operable to receive an encrypted security key from the one or more servers, to decrypt the encrypted security key, and to use the decrypted security key to gain secure access to the ECU.

23 . The diagnostic tool of claim 22 ,

Assignees

• Innova Electronics Corp

Inventors

• Pham Phuong
• Andreasen Keith
• Bach Ly
• Le Khanh
• Nguyen Hoang

Classifications

• H04L9/30 Primary

  Public key, i.e. encryption algorithm being computationally infeasible to invert or user's encryption keys not requiring secrecy · CPC title

• G07C5/008

  communicating information to a remotely located station (transmission systems for measured values G08C) · CPC title

• H04L9/0822 Primary

  using key encryption key · CPC title