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Dubai: How self-driving vehicles are protected from cyber threats
Self-driving vehicles, or autonomous vehicles, are those that have technologies that work without or with partial assistance from a human driver
- PUBLISHED: Wed 7 May 2025, 8:31 PM
- By:
- Hind Aldah
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To protect self-driving vehicles from cyber attacks, Dubai Electronic Security Centre (DESC) worked with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to implement a “three-step” solution. This includes the idea of a minimum viable policy, which looks at the minimum standards that vehicles can run on in Dubai.
The idea of minimum viable policy is taken from minimum viable product (MVP), a term used in business to describe the simplest version of a product to sell to a market. DESC applied the same concept by setting minimum standards for self-driving vehicles.
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In a talk with local and global government leaders, Bushra Al Blooshi, director of cybersecurity governance risk management department at DESC, explained the three-step process that the centre implemented to protect autonomous vehicles in Dubai from cyber attacks.
First, the centre set basic safety requirements, then developed a detailed security standard, and finally implemented it through official policy. She said that this was one example of how DESC implemented a minimum viable policy with a government entity.
“The last step was a resolution that was issued from RTA, and it has defined the minimum cybersecurity controls that the autonomous car providers should provide to the city in order to make the experience of the individuals in this city smooth, secure, and build that trust between us, the community, and also the providers of those cars,” Al Blooshi said.
Self-driving vehicles, or autonomous vehicles, are those that have technologies that work without or with partial assistance from a human driver. The Dubai Metro, for example, is fully automated and driverless.
Al Blooshi said that these steps were taken with RTA after the announcement of the Autonomous Transportation Strategy, in 2017. The strategy aims to have 25 per cent of all transportation trips in Dubai to be driverless by 2030.
Hind Aldah covers business, tech, crypto and all that jazz for a younger audience. In her spare time, you will find her playing classical guitar, painting amateur oil paintings, or crocheting the same old scarf that leads nowhere.