GrammaTech
Save Lives and Cost with Secure Software

Organizations across all industries have been moving steadily towards digital transformation to derive maximum value from modern technologies such as IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence. Trustworthy software is critical to ensure maximum return on digital technologies. The demand for trustworthy software is even higher in industries such as automotive, which is witnessing a renaissance with the advent of the ‘connected car’ and autonomous driving assist technologies.

“The connected car appears to be the perfect storm for software developers in the automotive industry,” begins Vince Arneja, Chief Product Officer at GrammaTech. “Automotive companies are aiming to accelerate their time to market when it comes to connected cars, but the inherent complexity and increasing sophistication of software as well as the need for safety and security is slowing them down.” Arneja explains, “Self-maneuvering, while driving or parking, requires complex interactions between multiple applications, typically provided by different vendors. In such a demanding situation, any gap in security or reliability can lead to catastrophic failure.” GrammaTech is helping the industry save lives and cost by filling the gaps in automotive software for secure interactions between in house or procured applications and software components, resulting in a better driving experience.

GrammaTech’s innovative code analysis solutions help clients identify issues early in the software development lifecycle with both static analysis and software composition analysis. Through static analysis, clients’ development teams can easily zero in on the bugs and vulnerabilities which can lead to unexpected behavior or make the software open to cyber exploitation. Static analysis can also ensure that their code aligns with the automotive industry standards such as ISO26262 (for functional safety) and MISRA coding standards, which seek to promote best practices in developing safety-related electronic systems in road vehicles. Through software composition analysis, companies can investigate what components were used in applications they procure from third parties, and through that, investigate whether they are exposed to known cyber vulnerabilities.

GrammaTech is helping the industry save lives and cost by filling the gaps in automotive software for secure interactions between in-house built or procured applications and software components

Several large automotive OEMs as well as Tier 1 and Tier 2 solution providers leverage GrammaTech’s solutions to achieve safe, secure, and high-performance software. In an instance, an OEM building a self-driving car found a severe problem in the software logic for the error handling function. The loophole in the logic could lead to a buffer overrun, wiping out large areas of memory, causing a vehicle crash, eventually. With GrammaTech’s solution, the client’s developers were able to address this issue before the software went into production. Proactive insights and quick decision-making helped the client save cost, reputation as well as prevent the loss of lives, which would have been the eventual outcome of deploying flawed software.

Committed to solving the evolving challenges of the industry, GrammaTech is pushing the envelope in innovation to cater to the new paradigm in automotive software. “Modern automotive software systems are built with a large set of components from different vendors, all utilizing a mix of proprietary software (custom code), open source code, and different APIs,” adds Arneja. “GrammaTech helps companies detect security vulnerabilities in the software they develop themselves and in the components they procure from a third party through their supply chain.”

With the growing adoption of shift left principle in the automotive industry, the onus of secure software is drifting toward the developers. Noticeably, developers are under increased pressure to develop ‘worry-free’ code. Stepping up to the challenge, GrammaTech is doubling down on its commitment to help modern development teams build highly reliable and secure software and drive innovation.