Live at DAC #5: Auto cybersecurity panel balances right to tinker with security

Author

Anne Cirkel is the General Chair for the 52nd DAC and a Senior Director for Technology Marketing at Mentor Graphics. Prior to joining Mentor Anne held marketing management positions at Analogy, Viewlogic, and Berner & Mattner. Anne holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with an undergraduate in Metallurgy from RWTH Aachen, in Germany. She has been actively involved on the Executive Committees for DAC and DATE as well as the Program Committee for Embedded World.

9 a.m.

Great discussion earlier today by our three panelists: Jeffrey Massimilla, chief product cybersecurity officer at General Motors; Craig Smith of Theia Labs and OpenGarages.org; and journalist John McElroy. Here are three quick takeaways in case you missed it. (Ahem, those of you who were out too late at the Denali party, I’m talking to you.)

Craig: The challenge is how to make cars secure without closing off the ability to customize and tinker, which Americans especially love to do. (Craig made his point with the image below, which got a good laugh.)
Jeffrey (on what it takes to do cybersecurity right): To get the necessary resources, this has to be a boardroom discussion; it is at GM.
John (on excessive media scare stories about cyber threats): Consumers generally do a good job evaluating all sorts of products before making a purchase, but unfortunately when it comes to media and news stories, people will buy anything.

What did you think of the panelist format? Want to see more of the same next year?

DAC engineers apparently aren't the only ones who love to tinker.