🧠 Understanding Automotive Risk Assessments

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” Warren Buffett

This post explores two industry standard frameworks HEAVENS and EVITA that help cybersecurity professionals perform effective threat and risk assessments for Cyber Physical Vehicles (CPVs).

🔍 What is Risk?

A risk assessment quantifies potential cybersecurity threats by evaluating

• Vulnerabilities
• Threats
• Likelihood of exploitation
• Impact on assets
• Effectiveness of existing security controls

Common formulas

• Risk = Threat * Vulnerability
• Risk = Threat * Vulnerability * Asset Value
• Risk = ((Vulnerability * Threat) / Countermeasure) * Asset Value

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⚙️ HEAVENS Framework

The HEAVENS model consists of three steps

1. Determine Threat Level (TL)
2. Determine Impact Level (IL)
3. Determine Security Level (SL)

🔓 Threat Level Parameters

Parameter	Options and Values
Expertise	Layman (0), Proficient (1), Expert (2), Multiple Expert (3)
Knowledge of TOE	Public (0), Restricted (1), Sensitive (2), Critical (3)
Equipment	Standard (0), Specialized (1), Bespoke (2), Multiple Bespoke (3)
Window of Opportunity	Low (3), Medium (2), High (1), Critical (0)

Final TL Value is the sum of the four parameters.

💥 Impact Level Parameters

1. Safety
   • No Injury (0), Light/Moderate (10), Severe (100), Life Threatening (1000)
2. Financial
   • No Impact (0), Low (10), Medium (100), High (1000)
3. Operational
   • Ranges from No Impact (0) to Major Disruption (100)
4. Privacy & Legislation
   • No Impact (0), Low (1), Medium (10), High (100)

🔐 Security Level (SL)

Final security levels are derived from TL and IL. A matrix is used to derive SL from the TL/IL combinations.

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🛡️ EVITA Framework

EVITA is an EU funded initiative that evaluates risks across

• 🚧 Safety
• 🕵️ Privacy
• 💰 Financial Losses
• ⚙️ Operational Impact

🎯 Severity Classes (0–4)

Class	Safety	Privacy	Financial	Operational
0	No injuries	No data access	No loss	No impact
4	Fatalities	ID leakage	Multi vehicle losses	Multi vehicle failures

🧮 Attack Potential Factors

Factor	Levels
Elapsed Time	≤1 day (0) to >6 months (19)
Expertise	Layman (0), Expert (6), Multiple Experts (8)
System Knowledge	Public (0) to Critical (11)
Window of Opportunity	Unlimited (0) to None (∞)
Equipment	Standard (0) to Multiple Bespoke (9)

🎲 Probability Mapping

Score Range	Attack Probability
0–9	Basic (5)
10–13	Enhanced-Basic (4)
14–19	Moderate (3)
20–24	High (2)
≥25	Beyond High (1)

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🧠 Key Takeaways

• HEAVENS gives a structured method for scoring risk via TL and IL.
• EVITA emphasizes attack effort and severity across various categories.
• Both frameworks are invaluable for assessing cybersecurity in connected vehicles.

You can use these frameworks as part of your automotive pentesting checklist or integrate them into CI/CD security gates for embedded automotive software.

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