Uber Suspends Self-Driving Car Program After Arizona Crash

News is circulating that Uber is temporarily suspending tests of its self-driving cars following a crash Friday evening in Tempe, AZ, that involved one of the company’s autonomous vehicles. The accident occurred when the driver of a second vehicle “failed to yield” to the Uber vehicle, which was in self-driving mode, while making a turn. The vehicles collided, causing the autonomous vehicle to roll onto its side.  Mike Ahmadi, global director – critical systems security at Synopsys commented below.

Mike Ahmadi, Global Director – Critical Systems Security at Synopsys:

“What concerns me deeply about autonomous vehicles is that simply getting them to work, absent of any security concerns, is a major challenge. Unless secure coding practices coupled with a good program of validation and verification throughout the vehicle lifecycle is put in place at the beginning, we may end up with autonomous vehicles that are functionally capable, but are not ready to withstand the potentially hostile environment of a connected world, which is fraught with an infinite number of cybersecurity issues, most of which are entirely non-functional in nature.”