How a National Lab is Securing Electric Vehicles and Smart Cars of the Future

How a National Lab is Securing Electric Vehicles and Smart Cars of the Future

The reality of an all-connected world with interacting autonomous vehicles and heaps of communicating internet of things devices has yet to take effect—but researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are already working to outpace sophisticated cyber threats of the future. 


In a conversation with Nextgov Monday, Cybersecurity Analyst Roland Varriale offered an overview of several of the lab’s efforts to secure conventional, autonomous and electric vehicle ecosystems and guard against unseen risks. 


“We’re looking at security more holistically—a lot of the time it’s more pigeonholed, almost like whack-a-mole, where we are looking for very specific solutions for very specific problems,” Varriale said. “But I think as a national lab, we should be looking at the larger problems, the more influential problems that drive the industry.”


And across a variety of projects at the Illinois-based research facility, the teams’ work aims to accomplish exactly that. Varriale’s early focus was on defending industrial control systems. Though he doesn’t identify as “a motorhead or anything,” he’s always been fascinated by cars. In his current capacity, the cybersecurity analyst oversees a range of future-facing efforts that gather thinkers with diverse backgrounds to address emerging threats across the mobility space. 


“It’s not too much to ask for us to go big—go big or go home—when we are looking at solutions that will exist for a while,” he said. “They’ll be overarching and they are going to be influential.”


For one project, researchers aim to identify all the possible points of compromise in a solar-charged converted gas station housed inside of Argonne. The site is loaded with electric vehicle charging stations and features an energy management system and solar canopies that measure how much energy is produced and distributed. 


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