"Competing in Autonomous Vehicle Security R&D" Cybersecurity Challenge... 800 Million Won Research Fund for Winning Team

[Asia Economy Reporter Joeslgina] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 1st that it will recruit participating teams for the ‘2021 Cybersecurity Challenge Competition’ from the 2nd of this month until September 15, focusing on security technology for autonomous vehicles.

The Cybersecurity Challenge Competition is an R&D contest aimed at securing technological competitiveness in the domestic information security field and revitalizing the research ecosystem by selecting and intensively supporting outstanding researchers. The winning team will receive follow-up research funding of approximately 800 million KRW annually for two years.

This year, following last year, the competition plans to focus on attacks and detection related to vehicle infotainment systems, which can be used as cyberattack routes on in-vehicle networks.

The preliminary round will be conducted by having participants find up to five vulnerabilities in the vehicle infotainment system based on files and technical materials provided by the organizers, and submit the results of their attacks on the competition website.

The preliminary submissions will be scored according to predetermined criteria, and after reproducibility verification and checks for unfair practices, the teams advancing to the finals will be announced on October 6 through the competition website.

The final competition will be held offline on November 24. Eight teams that pass the preliminary round will compete in attacking and detecting vehicle infotainment systems.

The single research team that wins the final competition will receive the Minister of Science and ICT Award along with research funding to promote follow-up research (800 million KRW annually, for up to two years).

Hong Jin-bae, Director of Information Security Network Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, emphasized, “Cyberattacks on autonomous vehicles directly threaten driver safety, so securing security technology is of utmost importance,” and added, “We hope this Cybersecurity Challenge Competition will play a significant role in securing vehicle security technology to protect drivers.”

Details of the 2021 Cybersecurity Challenge Competition can be found in the Ministry of Science and ICT’s project announcement, the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) project announcement, and on the Cybersecurity Challenge Competition website.