INTERVIEW
Building robust security framework for connected car How has your role changed after the acquisition of Symphony Teleca by HARMAN? After the acquisition of Symphony A Teleca by HARMAN in 2015, I was appointed the Country Manager for HARMAN India, responsible for the overall development and execution of HARMAN’s strategic intent and plans for India. My priorities include enhancing HARMAN’s mind and market share across four business units: Connected Car, Lifestyle Audio, Professional Solutions and Connected Services in India. In addition, I’m responsible for building a strong engineering and development team in the country, which drives advanced technology work for both domestic and international customers. I also continue to serve as the CFO of HARMAN Connected Services division. How do you think the recent acQ quisitions by HARMAN strengthens its hold in the connected car market? All of our recent acquisitions inA cluding Symphony Teleca, Red Bend and TowerSec have been strategic milestones in enabling a seamless, secure, and connected lifestyle from work and home to car and mobile. The acquisition of Symphony Teleca was a transformative step for HARMAN that gave us immediate scale in software services. With the addition of cloud, mobility and analytics competencies, we are poised to accelerate solutions for the connected car and for a broader set of industries and markets. RedBend’s software management solutions and hypervisor-based virtualization technologies for cyber security are widely adopted in mobile devices and ideally suited to meet the rising demands of the connected car. Importantly, RedBend solutions also serve as critical prerequisites for autonomous driving. By bringing RedBend under the
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PG.22 | Smart Automotive | March - April 2016
HARMAN umbrella and driving broad industry usage, HARMAN’s combined technology portfolio will seamlessly enable safe, secure OTA updates for a variety of on-board HARMAN and non-HARMAN automotive systems – whether embedded or downloaded -- speeding the pace of innovation to automakers and the industry. TowerSec’s technology will be integrated into HARMAN’s 5+1 security architecture aimed at protecting the critical points of vulnerability in the connected and autonomous car, including hardware, network and Over the Air (OTA) updates. Can you share your views on conQ nected and autonomous car demand? The demand for connected, and A eventually autonomous cars is accelerating quickly and it is expected that more than 90 percent of vehicles on the road will be connected by 2020 (Frost and Sullivan). Automakers are under increasing pressure to provide consumers with all the high-end connectivity features that they want, but in a manner that does not compromise on safety and security. Why are Tier 1 suppliers acquiring Q software capabilities into their business? The Internet of Things (IoT) is ushA ering in a rapid convergence of experiences, content and commerce and advancing technology from digital to connected to intelligent systems. Software is driving this evolution and as a result, software solutions and services will be key to the success of Tier 1 suppliers like HARMAN. few white-hat security Q Recently, researchers have mentioned infotainment head units as the most vulnerable part for cyber attacks. How is HARMAN coping with this? A Cyber security is definitely one of
the biggest challenges the automotive industry faces at the moment. As cars become increasingly connected to the outside world, the threat of potentially lethal cyber attacks is becoming a very real possibility. At HARMAN, finding solutions to this problem is a key priority for us. Over the last two years we’ve made massive inroads by way of acquisition as well as organic innovation. We have been working on building a robust 5+1 security framework which has been very well received by industry stakeholders. HARMAN 5+1 Security Framework is the industry’s most robust and in-depth security framework for connected cars. The multi layered architecture provides a “defense-in-depth” model with each layer acting as a defensive perimeter that an attacker has to surmount to launch an attack successfully. Does HARMAN have any plan to Q increase investment/manufacture under the ‘Make in India’ initiative? With more than 7,500 employees, A India is home to HARMAN’s largest concentration of software engineers and designers, focused on developing innovative systems and solutions that leverage cloud, data and analytics to advance the connected car, connected enterprise and connected lifestyle. We have offices and R&D centers across seven cities in India, as well as a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and acoustics lab. Located in Pune, the plant has the advantage of being close to a large base of automotive OEMs and has a production capacity of 400, 000 car sets per annum. The acoustic lab which is also located in Pune, is home to state-of-the-art fabrication, tuning and listening rooms and features an array of proprietary hardware / software tools to cater to existing and emerging demands in the realm of automotive audio & acoustics. www.telematicswire.net
