Abdelmoula Tamoudi, CEO of Kereval, and Laurent Benoit, Executive Chairman of UTAC, are pleased with their collaboration, which will begin following the signing of their partnership agreement on December 13, 2021.

Kereval has been chosen as a partner by UTAC, a private and independent group, a privileged partner of the automotive and mobility industry, to bring its expertise in cybersecurity of embedded systems and to accompany it in the approval of automotive cybersecurity.

Kereval’s technical expertise and quality approach convinced UTAC to include the Breton software testing specialist in its application to be designated as a technical service by the French authorities for the international UNR 155 regulation on automotive cyber security. In the European Union, this new cybersecurity regulation will be mandatory for all new vehicle types from July 2022 and will become mandatory for all new vehicles produced from July 2024.

A winning bet, since UTAC has just been selected, with Kereval as a partner, by the Ministry of Ecological Transition for a period of three years as the only French technical service for the approval of vehicle cybersecurity systems.

Keeping hackers at bay

Our cars are and will be increasingly connected, they will inevitably communicate with other vehicles and with the infrastructures of intelligent territories. If they are not secured, their electronic systems could be compromised by attackers. With software accounting for more than 60% of the value of the vehicle in 2030 according to PwC, the risk of a cyber security breach will be multiplied. It is therefore necessary to work to keep up with the evolution of increasingly sophisticated technologies and thus fight against cyber-malware.

35 recruitments

This new long-term partnership with UTAC will boost Kereval’s activities in embedded systems test engineering and cyber security dedicated to the automotive industry. The company plans to recruit 35 employees in these fields over the next three years.

This major reinforcement of the company’s activity in the world of vehicles is the result of a long-term investment in research and development to master software and hardware security, embedded protocols (CAN, LIN, SPI, I²C, etc.) and radio technologies (Bluetooth, LoRa, NFC, BLE, etc.). It is the result of collaborative projects such as Ker-Seveco, financially supported by the Brittany Region, Rennes Métropole and the European Union’s ERDF funds, and labelled by the ID4Car and Images et Réseaux competitiveness clusters, and the Cyberlab project, financially supported by Rennes Métropole. The Ker-Seveco project, conducted with the company Mobility Tech Green and a research laboratory at the ENSTA Bretagne engineering school, aims to improve the cybersecurity of connected vehicles, while the Cyberlab project is designed to test the critical systems of smartcity players and to secure the development of the Rennes Métropole territory.

This cybersecurity expertise now enables Kereval’s teams to provide car manufacturers and equipment suppliers with a global vision of cybersecurity and to assess all the risks affecting embedded systems. It also responds to the challenges of cities, which have become intelligent territories that must also guarantee the security of their citizens while on the move.