CAN Bus Workshop

Overview

This workshop provides a structured, hands-on introduction to the CAN bus as used in real vehicles. Participants learn how CAN works, how to analyze traffic, and where design and security assumptions break down in practice.

The focus is on understanding systems — not exploiting them.

Concept Breakdown

Audience & Level

This workshop is intended for:

• IT security professionals
• Automotive or embedded engineers
• Developers working close to hardware or protocols

This workshop is not intended for:

• Complete networking beginners
• People looking for pre-built attack scripts

Learning Objectives

After the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Explain how CAN arbitration and frame handling work
• Read and interpret raw CAN traffic
• Reason about bus load, timing, and message priority
• Identify architectural and security-relevant weaknesses
• Understand tooling commonly used in CAN analysis

Structure

The workshop is divided into focused blocks:

• CAN fundamentals and frame structure
• Arbitration, timing, and bus behavior
• Tooling and live traffic analysis
• Security perspective and threat modeling
• Discussion of real-world architectures

Exact timing depends on format and audience.

Prerequisites

Participants should be familiar with:

• Basic networking concepts
• Binary and hexadecimal notation
• Command-line tooling

Recommended preparation includes reviewing the Knowledge Base articles on CAN frame structure and arbitration.

References

The workshop builds on and references the following Knowledge Base topics:

• CAN Frame Structure
• CAN Bus Arbitration

All referenced material is available in the Knowledge Base.

After the Workshop

Participants receive access to:

• Workshop-specific materials
• Updated references and errata
• Pointers for further study

Materials are provided directly to workshop participants via email after the session.

Contact

For workshop-related questions, contact:

• web@tfitconsult.de (general)