Thatcham Research, the British insurers’ research centre, has said the automotive industry needs to push to create robust standards to strengthen cyber secure for future connected vehicles.

Thatcham is part of the Cyber Security Consortium for Connected Vehicles (CCV).

Andrew Miller, Thatcham chief technology officer, said: “There are a wide range of stakeholders with an obvious interest in this area from the likes of Google and Apple who are increasingly moving into the automotive space to the more traditional vehicle manufacturers.

“With this mix of interested parties it’s critical to quickly establish a set of robust security standards and protocols around cyber security that everyone can agree and work to and which will avoid the kind of fragmented approach that hackers could exploit.”

According to government statistics, the scale of cyber-crime is already thought to cost the UK economy over £27 billion per year.

Miller said: “No connected computer system can be 100% guaranteed, and as technological development in the automotive industry continues at pace so that security threat potentially increases.

“However, Thatcham has demonstrated previously how a collaborative approach can help the authorities stay one step ahead of the criminals.”

Thatcham is already responsible for evaluating security levels on all new vehicles destined for UK roads, both as a basis for insurance grouping and as a consumer guide to vehicle security standards.

As part of the CCV Thatcham will provide its experience in the development of new standards around cyber security, as well as in its influence on vehicle and product manufacturers to establish a coordinated approach to future security solutions.