The attack surface of a modern vehicle is no longer just a lock cylinder - it's every radio, every API endpoint, every over-the-air update. SBD Automotive, founded in 1997 by former Nissan engineers, has spent nearly three decades mapping that surface. Headquartered in the UK with offices in Japan, North America, China, India, and Germany, the firm operates as an independent research and consulting outfit serving hundreds of automotive OEMs, suppliers, investors, and governments.
Security is one of five core technical domains, alongside connected vehicles, autonomous driving, shared mobility, and electric vehicles. The company's approach is hands-on and adversarial in nature: its founding vision involved interviewing convicted car thieves and reverse-engineering theft tools to understand how vehicles are actually compromised. That ethos - learn from the threat actor, not just the spec sheet - still defines the work. A team of over 100 experts produces the intelligence that automakers use to make architectural decisions about vehicle security.
For cybersecurity professionals, the draw is the scope of the problem set. The firm doesn't sell security products; it delivers research and consulting across the full stack of automotive technology. That means engagements touch everything from CAN bus intrusion vectors to cloud-connected fleet management platforms to the security posture of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The work is technical, domain-specific, and aimed at the companies building the vehicles - not end users.
