Nataša Trkulja, M. Sc.

Nataša Trkulja, M. Sc.
Nataša Trkulja, M. Sc.
wiss. Angestellte
Institut für Verteilte Systeme
Institut für Verteilte Systeme
Universität Ulm
Albert-Einstein-Allee 11
89081 Ulm
Germany
Raum: O27 3210
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Nataša Trkulja

Nataša Trkulja is a research assistant at the Institute of Distributed Systems. Her research focuses on the cybersecurity and privacy of wireless communication networks, particularly as related to Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) networks.

She holds a Master of Science degree (M.Sc.) from Boston University (USA) in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc.) from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (USA) in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She worked in the automotive industry for three years as an electrical design engineer prior to starting graduate school.

Research

Projects

  • CONNECT (09/2022; ongoing): Continuous and Efficient Cooperative Trust Management for Resilient CCAM. Funding: European Union’s Horizon Europe
  • SAVE (11/2020 – 10/2022; ongoing): Securing Automated VEhicles – Japan-Germany. Funding: BMBF.
  • SecForCARs (04/2018 – 10/2022; ongoing): Security for Connected Automated Cars. Funding: BMBF.

Publications

2022

Kargl, F., Krontiris, I., Weimerskirch, A., Williams, I. and Trkulja, N. 2022. Privacy Protection of Automated and Self-Driving Vehicles (Dagstuhl Seminar 22042). Dagstuhl Reports. 12, 1 (2022), 83–100.
This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 22042 "Privacy Protection of Automated and Self-Driving Vehicles". The Seminar reviewed existing privacy-enhancing technologies, standards, tools, and frameworks for protecting personal information in the context of automated and self-driving vehicles (AVs). We specifically focused on where such existing techniques clash with requirements of an AV and its data processing and identified the major road blockers on the way to deployment of privacy protection in AVs from a legal, technical, business and ethical perspective. Therefore, the seminar took an interdisciplinary approach involving autonomous and connected driving, privacy protection, and legal data protection experts. This report summarizes the discussions and findings during the seminar, includes the abstracts of talks, and includes a report from the working groups.

2021

Trkulja, N., Starobinski, D. and Berry, R.A. 2021. Denial-of-Service Attacks on C-V2X Networks. Workshop on Automotive and Autonomous Vehicle Security (AutoSec) (2021), 25.
Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) has been adopted by the FCC as the technology standard for safety related transportation and vehicular communications in the US. C-V2X allows vehicles to self-manage the network in absence of a cellular base-station. Since C-V2X networks convey safety-critical messages, it is crucial to assess their security posture. This work contributes a novel set of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks on CV2X networks. The attacks are caused by adversarial resource block selection and vary in sophistication and efficiency. In particular, we consider “oblivious” adversaries that ignore recent transmission activity on resource blocks, “smart” adversaries that do monitor activity on each resource block, and “cooperative” adversaries that work together to ensure they attack different targets. We analyze and simulate these attacks to showcase their effectiveness. Assuming a fixed number of attackers, we show that at low vehicle density, smart and cooperative attacks can significantly impact network performance, while at high vehicle density, oblivious attacks are almost as effective as the more sophisticated attacks.

2020

Trkulja, N., Starobinski, D. and Berry, R.A. 2020. Denial-of-Service Attacks on C-V2X Networks. CoRR. abs/2010.13725, (2020).
Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) networks are increasingly adopted by automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). C-V2X, as defined in 3GPP Release 14 Mode 4, allows vehicles to self-manage the network in absence of a cellular base-station. Since C-V2X networks convey safety-critical messages, it is crucial to assess their security posture. This work contributes a novel set of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks on C-V2X networks operating in Mode 4. The attacks are caused by adversarial resource block selection and vary in sophistication and efficiency. In particular, we consider "oblivious" adversaries that ignore recent transmission activity on resource blocks, "smart" adversaries that do monitor activity on each resource block, and "cooperative" adversaries that work together to ensure they attack different targets. We analyze and simulate these attacks to showcase their effectiveness. Assuming a fixed number of attackers, we show that at low vehicle density, smart and cooperative attacks can significantly impact network performance, while at high vehicle density, oblivious attacks are almost as effective as the more sophisticated attacks.

Teaching Assistant:
  • Security of IT Systems (SEC) - WS 2021/2022
  • Praktische IT-Sicherheit (PSEC) - SS 2022
  • Embedded Security (EMS) - WS 2022/2023