MobileTrust: Secure Knowledge Integration in VANETs

Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANET) are becoming popular due to the emergence of the Internet of Things and ambient intelligence applications. In such networks, secure resource sharing functionality is accomplished by incorporating trust schemes. Current solutions adopt peer-to-peer technologies that can cover the large operational area. However, these systems fail to capture some inherent properties of VANETs, such as fast and ephemeral interaction, making robust trust evaluation of crowdsourcing challenging. In this article, we propose MobileTrust—a hybrid trust-based system for secure resource sharing in VANETs. The proposal is a breakthrough in centralized trust computing that utilizes cloud and upcoming 5G technologies to provide robust trust establishment with global scalability. The ad hoc communication is energy-efficient and protects the system against threats that are not countered by the current settings. To evaluate its performance and effectiveness, MobileTrust is modelled in the SUMO simulator and tested on the traffic features of the small-size German city of Eichstatt. Similar schemes are implemented in the same platform to provide a fair comparison. Moreover, MobileTrust is deployed on a typical embedded system platform and applied on a real smart car installation for monitoring traffic and road-state parameters of an urban application. The proposed system is developed under the EU-founded THREAT-ARREST project, to provide security, privacy, and trust in an intelligent and energy-aware transportation scenario, bringing closer the vision of sustainable circular economy

Security of 5G-V2X: Technologies, Standardization and Research Directions

Cellular-Vehicle to Everything (C-V2X) aims at resolving issues pertaining to the traditional usability of Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) networking. Specifically, C-V2X lowers the number of entities involved in vehicular communications and allows the inclusion of cellular-security solutions to be applied to V2X. For this, the evolvement of LTE-V2X is revolutionary, but it fails to handle the demands of high throughput, ultra-high reliability, and ultra-low latency alongside its security mechanisms. To counter this, 5G-V2X is considered as an integral solution, which not only resolves the issues related to LTE-V2X but also provides a function-based network setup. Several reports have been given for the security of 5G, but none of them primarily focuses on the security of 5G-V2X. This article provides a detailed overview of 5G-V2X with a security-based comparison to LTE-V2X. A novel Security Reflex Function (SRF)-based architecture is proposed and several research challenges are presented related to the security of 5G-V2X. Furthermore, the article lays out requirements of Ultra-Dense and Ultra-Secure (UD-US) transmissions necessary for 5G-V2X.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, Preprin

Development of an integrated web-based indoor parking system with sensors

Growing number of vehicles in recent years has an impact to road capacity and parking spaces. Even with support of an efficient public transport, some users prefer to use their personal vehicles. Hence, it resulted in lack of parking space in public areas. Looking for parking spaces is time, money and fuel consuming and causes unnecessary stress to drivers. This work will design and develop the sensing infrastructure which will be used as a part of an integrated smart parking system that integrates the sensing capability with wireless transmission to the central web portal. Then, the central web portal will provide a platform for vehicle parking reservation system made online through a computer. This system also permits drivers to make a reservation on available parking slots utilizing ID code keyed in for authentication and several indicators to denote availability, non-availability and reservation status at the parking slot. The communication technologies used has to upload and download information to and from the web. This work has shown that the development was successful for a single floor parking system and can be upgraded to multi-storey parking complex

Attack Resilience and Recovery using Physical Challenge Response Authentication for Active Sensors Under Integrity Attacks

Embedded sensing systems are pervasively used in life- and security-critical systems such as those found in airplanes, automobiles, and healthcare. Traditional security mechanisms for these sensors focus on data encryption and other post-processing techniques, but the sensors themselves often remain vulnerable to attacks in the physical/analog domain. If an adversary manipulates a physical/analog signal prior to digitization, no amount of digital security mechanisms after the fact can help. Fortunately, nature imposes fundamental constraints on how these analog signals can behave. This work presents PyCRA, a physical challenge-response authentication scheme designed to protect active sensing systems against physical attacks occurring in the analog domain. PyCRA provides security for active sensors by continually challenging the surrounding environment via random but deliberate physical probes. By analyzing the responses to these probes, and by using the fact that the adversary cannot change the underlying laws of physics, we provide an authentication mechanism that not only detects malicious attacks but provides resilience against them. We demonstrate the effectiveness of PyCRA through several case studies using two sensing systems: (1) magnetic sensors like those found wheel speed sensors in robotics and automotive, and (2) commercial RFID tags used in many security-critical applications. Finally, we outline methods and theoretical proofs for further enhancing the resilience of PyCRA to active attacks by means of a confusion phase---a period of low signal to noise ratio that makes it more difficult for an attacker to correctly identify and respond to PyCRA's physical challenges. In doing so, we evaluate both the robustness and the limitations of PyCRA, concluding by outlining practical considerations as well as further applications for the proposed authentication mechanism.Comment: Shorter version appeared in ACM ACM Conference on Computer and Communications (CCS) 201

Wireless digital traffic signs of the future

[EN] Traffic signs have come a long way since the first automobile was invented. They have long served the purpose of warning and guiding drivers and also enforcing the traffic laws governing speed, parking, turns, and stopping. In this study, the authors discuss the issues and challenges facing current traffic signs, and how it will evolve into a next-generation traffic sign architecture using advanced wireless communications technologies. With technological advances in the areas of wireless communications and embedded electronics and software, we foresee that, in the future, digital traffic sign posts will be capable of transmitting the traffic sign information wirelessly to road users, and this will transform our roads into intelligent roads, where signs will appear promptly and automatically on in-vehicle displays to alert the driver. There is no longer the need to watch out for traffic signs since the detection will be automatic and performed wirelessly. This transformation will lessen burden on the drivers, so that they can then focus more on the traffic ahead while driving. Also, this evolution into wireless digital sign posts will fit well with the vision of future smart cities, where smart transportation technologies will be present to transform how we drive and commute, yielding greater safety, ease, and assistance to drivers.Toh, CK.; Cano, J.; Fernandez-Laguia, C.; Manzoni, P.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM. (2019). Wireless digital traffic signs of the future. IET Networks. 8(1):74-78. https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-net.2018.5127S74788

Cloud Computing in VANETs: Architecture, Taxonomy, and Challenges

Cloud Computing in VANETs (CC-V) has been investigated into two major themes of research including Vehicular Cloud Computing (VCC) and Vehicle using Cloud (VuC). VCC is the realization of autonomous cloud among vehicles to share their abundant resources. VuC is the efficient usage of conventional cloud by on-road vehicles via a reliable Internet connection. Recently, number of advancements have been made to address the issues and challenges in VCC and VuC. This paper qualitatively reviews CC-V with the emphasis on layered architecture, network component, taxonomy, and future challenges. Specifically, a four-layered architecture for CC-V is proposed including perception, co-ordination, artificial intelligence and smart application layers. Three network component of CC-V namely, vehicle, connection and computation are explored with their cooperative roles. A taxonomy for CC-V is presented considering major themes of research in the area including design of architecture, data dissemination, security, and applications. Related literature on each theme are critically investigated with comparative assessment of recent advances. Finally, some open research challenges are identified as future issues. The challenges are the outcome of the critical and qualitative assessment of literature on CC-V