Secure Audio-Visual Data Exchange for Android In-Vehicle Ecosystems

Mobile device pairing inside vehicles is a ubiquitous task which requires easy to use and secure solutions. In this work we exploit the audio-video domain for pairing devices inside vehicles. In principle, we rely on the widely used elliptical curve version of the Diffie-Hellman key-exchange protocol and extract the session keys from the acoustic domain as well as from the visual domain by using the head unit display. The need for merging the audio-visual domains first stems from the fact that in-vehicle head units generally do not have a camera so they cannot use visual data from smartphones, however, they are equipped with microphones and can use them to collect audio data. Acoustic channels are less reliable as they are more prone to errors due to environmental noise. However, this noise can be also exploited in a positive way to extract secure seeds from the environment and audio channels are harder to intercept from the outside. On the other hand, visual channels are more reliable but can be more easily spotted by outsiders, so they are more vulnerable for security applications. Fortunately, mixing these two types of channels results in a solution that is both more reliable and secure for performing a key exchange.