Secure management of digital authentication information for autonomous vehicles

A cloud-based computing system for injection of secrets to an autonomous vehicle, comprising:

• a secrets vault configured to store a plurality of secrets for a fleet of vehicles including the autonomous vehicle, wherein respective secrets of the plurality of secrets each include private digital authentication information for accessing a respective client in the autonomous vehicle;
• a vehicle information database configured to store information about vehicles in the fleet of vehicles including the autonomous vehicle;
• and
• a cloud-based secrets authenticator configured to provide secrets to the fleet of vehicles including the autonomous vehicle, and further configured to:
• receive a secrets request from the autonomous vehicle,
• access a subset of the plurality of secrets from the secrets vault based on the secrets request and the information from the vehicle information database for the autonomous vehicle;
• and
• a secrets manager in the autonomous vehicle configured to:
• communicate with the cloud-based secrets authenticator to transmit the secrets request and obtain the subset of the plurality of secrets,
• save the subset of the plurality of secrets in an onboard memory,
• provide access to respective secrets of the subset of secrets to respective clients in the autonomous vehicle, wherein the respective clients can access the respective secrets in the onboard memory, and
• delete the subset of the plurality secrets from the onboard memory when the autonomous vehicle is powered down.

A method for providing secrets to an autonomous vehicle, comprising:

• at the autonomous vehicle:
• determining a set of secrets to request at a secrets manager, wherein respective secrets of the set of secrets each include private digital authentication information for accessing a respective device in the autonomous vehicle, wherein each respective device has a data-configurable list of secrets to fetch;
• transmitting a request for the set of secrets from the secrets manager to a central computing system secrets authenticator configured to provide secrets to a fleet of vehicles including the autonomous vehicle;
• receiving, at the secrets manager on the autonomous vehicle, the set of secrets from the central computing system secrets authenticator;
• saving, by the secrets manager, the set of secrets in an onboard memory;
• providing access to respective secrets of the set of secrets to the respective devices in the autonomous vehicle, wherein the respective devices access the respective secrets in the onboard memory;
• and
• at the central computing system secrets authenticator:
• identifying the autonomous vehicle in a vehicle information database;
• authenticating the autonomous vehicle, based in part on the identification;
• identifying selected secrets from a secrets vault to fulfill the request;
• and
• transmitting the selected secrets to the secrets manager.