Cybersecurity is a safety issue, and a top priority at the Department. Our intention with today’s guidance is to provide best practices to help protect against breaches and other security failures that can put motor vehicle safety.

—US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx

This guidance also highlights the importance of making cybersecurity a top leadership priority for the automotive industry, and suggests that companies should demonstrate it by allocating appropriate and dedicated resources, and enabling seamless and direct communication channels though organizational ranks related to vehicle cybersecurity matters.

In addition to product development, the guidance suggests best practices for researching, investigating, testing and validating cybersecurity measures. NHTSA recommends the industry self-audit and consider vulnerabilities and exploits that may impact their entire supply-chain of operations. The safety agency also recommends employee training to educate the entire automotive workforce on new cybersecurity practices and to share lessons learned with others.

The best practices guidance is based on public feedback gathered by NHTSA, as well as the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. The proposed guidance follows actions by other entities on motor vehicle cybersecurity, including SAE J3061 Recommended Best Practice: Cybersecurity Guidebook for Cyber-Physical Vehicle Systems and the executive summary to the Automotive Cybersecurity Best Practices issued by the Auto-ISAC in, collaboration with the motor vehicle trade associations, in July 2016. NHTSA’s guidance also suggests that organizations should consider and adopt all applicable industry best practices.

NHTSA is soliciting public comments on the proposed guidance for 30 days. The public can submit feedback by visiting regulations.gov and searching for docket NHTSA-2016-0104.