Perforce Software’s annual State of Automotive Software Development survey conducted in partnership with Automotive IQ asked almost 600 automotive development professionals worldwide about current practices and emerging trends within the industry.
“Safety continues to be the automotive software industry’s key priority, but security concerns continue to rise as the need to protect automotive electronic systems, communication networks and software grows. OEMs and their supply chain partners want to prevent costly and malicious attacks, unauthorized access, or manipulation to automotive systems, and ensuring their code is secure is the first step to mitigating those incidents,” said Perforce vice president of product Ido Benmoshe.
According to the company, participants expressed a concern for automotive software security with the onslaught of autonomous, semi-autonomous, electric and connected vehicle applications that come with more safety and security considerations to take account of during the development process.
In general, Perforce Software reports that 82% of development teams are working on autonomous and semi-autonomous components, an increase of 38% over last year; 87% are working on electric components, an increase of 39% over last year; and 83% on connectivity components, an increase of 34% over last year.
The survey found that automotive developers’ top three concerns are safety (34%), security (27%), and quality (25%). Of those most concerned with safety, 46% said their biggest concerns are the difficulties and time required to meet every ISO 26262 requirement.
Perforce Software notes that 76% of automotive developers have adopted or are in the process of changing to a shift-left strategy to identify software security and safety vulnerabilities as early as possible. Another notable finding was that 86% use a coding standard to ensure safe, secure and reliable code – with 46% of those surveyed using a static code analysis tool to aid in compliance, and 31% using a SAST tool to ensure secure software.
Director of compliance Jill Britton said, “Organizations across the automotive industry continue to work toward meeting the highest levels of quality. With the rapid growth of the electric and autonomous vehicle segments, compliance to safety and security standards is becoming more important than ever.”
The full results of the survey are available in the 2022 State of Automotive Software Development Survey Report.