André Weimerskirch, Block Harbor Cybersecurity
Automotive cybersecurity has evolved through distinct phases, moving from limited industry awareness and a period of hype to today's regulated landscape. Despite substantial technological changes in vehicle architectures and connectivity over the last decade, confirmed security incidents remain largely constrained to vehicle theft and chip tuning. As the industry matures, investment patterns are shifting toward value-based decision making to meet regulatory compliance targets. The emergence of AI introduces a critical shift. On the threat side, AI may lower the technical and economic threshold for attacks, expanding the pool of capable adversaries and targeting previously unattractive systems. Conversely, AI offers immense potential for defense: it can accelerate vulnerability reduction, enable faster attack detection at scale, and automate security tasks to help stakeholders meet compliance goals. Crucially, the introduction of AI also creates new operational challenges, such as the need to automatically update vehicle firewalls within minutes and compress software update deployment timelines from months to hours. This talk provides a structured analysis of the field's historical trajectory, its current posture, and the specific security gaps that AI can and cannot close.
Dr. André Weimerskirch is COO of Block Harbor Cybersecurity. Before that, André was Vice President for Product Integrity and Technology at Lear Corporation where he was responsible for product security, functional safety, platform software, and validation labs. André also established the transportation cybersecurity group at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and still holds an Adjunct Associate Research Scientist appointment. André co-founded the embedded systems security company ESCRYPT in 2004 which was sold to Bosch in 2012.
André is active in all areas of transportation and AI robots cybersecurity and privacy. He is co-founder of the American workshop on embedded security in cars (escar USA), co-chairs the CCAT cybersecurity working group at the University of Michigan and is an advisor to the University of Michigan Dearborn Computer and Information Science Department.
