Privacy & security in vehicular Ad-hoc networks

Abstract

This research discusses the security issues of the Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks. In recent years, there have been growing interest and research efforts in the area of Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANET) because of the variety of services it can offer. These services fall into the categories of safety applications and non-safety applications. Safety is one of the most important goals of VANET since enhanced safety reduces accidents and therefore can improve traffic conditions and even save lives. Besides safety, other services such as Internet access, weather forecast and geolocation information can enrich travel experience by providing travel comfort, convenience and infotainment. The vehicles in VANET are envisioned to be smart in the following perspectives. First, they should incorporate the basic set of sensors such as front and rear radar that receive extra information from surroundings that the human driver is unable to perceive. Secondly, positioning systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) are also found essential for driving assistances. Finally, a smart vehicle should also be equipped with a communication system with potentially multiple interfaces, a central computing system and an Event Recording Device (ERD) whose functioning is similar to the black box of an aircraft. There are also proposals stressing that a smart vehicle should also be equipped with Electronic License Plates to better represent the identity of the vehicle and easy the verification and logging process Safety in VANETs is of special concern because human lives are constantly at stake whereas in traditional networks the major security concerns include confidentiality, integrity and availability none of which involves primarily with life safety. Vital information cannot be neither modified nor deleted by an attacker. Nonetheless, security in VANET also indicates the ability to determine the driver responsibility while maintaining driver privacy. Information about the vehicles and their drivers within must be exchanged securely and more importantly, timely in that the delay of message exchange may cause catastrophic consequences such as collision of vehicles. Besides general networks security issues, unique security challenges rises because of the unique characteristics of VANET such as high mobility, dynamic topology, short connection duration and frequent disconnections. These unique features bring security issues such as trust group formation, position detection and protection as well as certificate management The fundamental security requirements of VANET should include authentication, integrity and nonrepudiation. In some specific scenarios, confidentiality should also be provided against attackers. In addition, user’s privacy such as identity and location history is sensitive information and should be preserved against illegal tracking and user profiling for advertisements. The deployment of a comprehensive security system for VANET is very challenging in practice. A security breach of VANET is often critical and hazardous. VANET can benefit from the existing cryptographic solutions for dealing security attacks or by simple modifications of existing solutions. General cryptographic approaches that apply in VANET include public key schemes to distribute onetime symmetric session keys for message encryption, certificate schemes for authentication and randomizing traffic patterns against traffic analysis. VANET is an emerging research area with promising future as well as great challenges especially in its security.