Thermal Side Channels Create New Security Risks For Autonomous Vehicles (Missouri S&T)

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Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology published a survey, "Can Autonomous Vehicles Keep Their Cool?", grouping 13 representative works into three attack categories—thermal-aware integrity, telemetry leakage, and model information extraction—and comparing them by access level, timescale, and co-existing deployment, while mapping defenses to residual risks in thermal management runtimes.

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Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology published “Can Autonomous Vehicles Keep Their Cool? A Survey of Thermal Side-Channel and Perception Attacks.”

Abstract excerpt:
“This survey systematizes thirteen representative works into thermal perception integrity, telemetry leakage, and model-information extraction, comparing them by privilege, timescale, co-tenancy, deployability, and AV relevance. We distinguish attack family from adversary class and map defenses to residual risk while thermal management remains operational. ”

Find the technical paper here. October 2026

Aaryan, Harsh, and Ce Zhou. “Can Autonomous Vehicles Keep Their Cool? A Survey of Thermal Side-Channel and Perception Attacks.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2610.21034 (2026).