Cyber threats in automotive environment: Literature review and mitigation strategies

The increasing connectivity and autonomy of vehicles exposes them to a growing scenario of cyber security threats. This study analyzes recent cyberattacks and mitigation strategies for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Through a systematic analysis of papers published between 2020 and 2025, we examine threats to vehicular networks and V2X interfaces, including DoS, CAN bus injection, routing attacks in VANETs, and automotive Ethernet vulnerabilities. The results show strong progress in statistical detection, machine learning intrusion detection, physical layer authentication, secure routing, and Ethernet hardening. However, the emergence of sophisticated threats, including identity spoofing and data contamination, requires the development of more robust and adaptable security architectures. Soon, there will be a need for adaptive, intelligent, and context-aware security frameworks capable of supporting the evolving threat of landscape in modern vehicular environments.