Flexible Authentication in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

A Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) is a form of Mobile ad-hoc network, to provide communications among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed roadside equipment. The key operation in VANETs is the broadcast of messages. Consequently, the vehicles need to make sure that the information has been sent by an authentic node in the network. VANETs present unique challenges such as high node mobility, real-time constraints, scalability, gradual deployment and privacy. No existent technique addresses all these requirements. In particular, both inter-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside wireless communications present different characteristics that should be taken into account when defining node authentication services. That is exactly what is done in this paper, where the features of inter-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside communications are analyzed to propose differentiated services for node authentication, according to privacy and efficiency needs

Data-centric Misbehavior Detection in VANETs

Detecting misbehavior (such as transmissions of false information) in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is very important problem with wide range of implications including safety related and congestion avoidance applications. We discuss several limitations of existing misbehavior detection schemes (MDS) designed for VANETs. Most MDS are concerned with detection of malicious nodes. In most situations, vehicles would send wrong information because of selfish reasons of their owners, e.g. for gaining access to a particular lane. Because of this (\emph{rational behavior}), it is more important to detect false information than to identify misbehaving nodes. We introduce the concept of data-centric misbehavior detection and propose algorithms which detect false alert messages and misbehaving nodes by observing their actions after sending out the alert messages. With the data-centric MDS, each node can independently decide whether an information received is correct or false. The decision is based on the consistency of recent messages and new alert with reported and estimated vehicle positions. No voting or majority decisions is needed, making our MDS resilient to Sybil attacks. Instead of revoking all the secret credentials of misbehaving nodes, as done in most schemes, we impose fines on misbehaving nodes (administered by the certification authority), discouraging them to act selfishly. This reduces the computation and communication costs involved in revoking all the secret credentials of misbehaving nodes.Comment: 12 page

On the Security of the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Protocol

Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) is the communications protocol currently being rolled out as part of next generation air transportation systems. As the heart of modern air traffic control, it will play an essential role in the protection of two billion passengers per year, besides being crucial to many other interest groups in aviation. The inherent lack of security measures in the ADS-B protocol has long been a topic in both the aviation circles and in the academic community. Due to recently published proof-of-concept attacks, the topic is becoming ever more pressing, especially with the deadline for mandatory implementation in most airspaces fast approaching. This survey first summarizes the attacks and problems that have been reported in relation to ADS-B security. Thereafter, it surveys both the theoretical and practical efforts which have been previously conducted concerning these issues, including possible countermeasures. In addition, the survey seeks to go beyond the current state of the art and gives a detailed assessment of security measures which have been developed more generally for related wireless networks such as sensor networks and vehicular ad hoc networks, including a taxonomy of all considered approaches.Comment: Survey, 22 Pages, 21 Figure

Formal Analysis of V2X Revocation Protocols

Research on vehicular networking (V2X) security has produced a range of security mechanisms and protocols tailored for this domain, addressing both security and privacy. Typically, the security analysis of these proposals has largely been informal. However, formal analysis can be used to expose flaws and ultimately provide a higher level of assurance in the protocols. This paper focusses on the formal analysis of a particular element of security mechanisms for V2X found in many proposals: the revocation of malicious or misbehaving vehicles from the V2X system by invalidating their credentials. This revocation needs to be performed in an unlinkable way for vehicle privacy even in the context of vehicles regularly changing their pseudonyms. The REWIRE scheme by Forster et al. and its subschemes BASIC and RTOKEN aim to solve this challenge by means of cryptographic solutions and trusted hardware. Formal analysis using the TAMARIN prover identifies two flaws with some of the functional correctness and authentication properties in these schemes. We then propose Obscure Token (OTOKEN), an extension of REWIRE to enable revocation in a privacy preserving manner. Our approach addresses the functional and authentication properties by introducing an additional key-pair, which offers a stronger and verifiable guarantee of successful revocation of vehicles without resolving the long-term identity. Moreover OTOKEN is the first V2X revocation protocol to be co-designed with a formal model.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure