Presentation Title: Car Hacking as Career Exploration – SAE Battelle CyberAuto Challenge

Abstract: The modern vehicle infrastructure is more complex than it has ever been, but lacks the workforce to keep up with trends in engineering. We will discuss the annual SAE Battelle CyberAuto Challenge and how participation by high school students can set them on the path toward a career in the automotive and cybersecurity industries. Participants will learn about the CyberAuto Challenge and how they can get their students, schools, and/or companies involved in “Challenge Week.” Founded in 2012, the CyberAuto Challenge brings together high school students, college students, STEAM educators, automotive industry professionals, government employees, computer security professionals, and independent researchers for a week-long workshop of instruction and computer hacking on modern vehicle platforms. These are cars that you could drive off of a lot today. Through the use of a combination of lecture and learn-by-doing strategies, participants explore the computer systems that allow modern automobiles to operate. Courses include CAN Bus basics, SocketCAN tools for interacting with CAN Bus, hardware reverse engineering, software reverse engineering, wireless attack vectors, and how to plan a threat assessment, among others. We then apply these lessons directly to the learning platforms in order to, on the one hand, see what “makes them tick,” and on the other hand, provide a rich experience for our young participants to learn, grow, network, and build lifelong contacts that they can parlay into school, internship, and career opportunities. Curriculum Burst is an appropriate amount of time to convey information about the event without requiring the use of hands-on activities to explore CAN Bus and other related topics.

Biography: David Quinton-Schein is a high school teacher and educational consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. While his background is mathematics, he also teaches Project Lead the Way engineering and has taught computer networking and computer science. He has had the pleasure of working with SAE and Battelle on the CyberAuto Challenge since he was a participant in the inaugural event in 2012. He operates a multi-faceted entertainment and educational consulting firm out of his Timonium home.