A survey on pseudonym changing strategies for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

The initial phase of the deployment of Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs) has begun and many research challenges still need to be addressed. Location privacy continues to be in the top of these challenges. Indeed, both of academia and industry agreed to apply the pseudonym changing approach as a solution to protect the location privacy of VANETs'users. However, due to the pseudonyms linking attack, a simple changing of pseudonym shown to be inefficient to provide the required protection. For this reason, many pseudonym changing strategies have been suggested to provide an effective pseudonym changing. Unfortunately, the development of an effective pseudonym changing strategy for VANETs is still an open issue. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey and classification of pseudonym changing strategies. We then discuss and compare them with respect to some relevant criteria. Finally, we highlight some current researches, and open issues and give some future directions

When Two-Layer Federated Learning and Mean-Field Game Meet 5G and Beyond Security: Cooperative Defense Systems for 5G and Beyond Network Slicing

Cyber security for 5G and Beyond (5GB) network slicing is drawing much attention due to the increase of complex and dangerous cyber-attacks that could target the critical components of network slicing, such as radio access and core network. This paper proposes a new cyber defense approach based on two-layer Federated Learning (FL) to protect 5GB network slicing from the most dangerous network attacks and a mean-field game to safeguard the FL-enabled defense system from poisoning attacks. Our proposed distributed defense systems cooperate, intending to detect internal and external attacks targeting the critical components of 5GB network slicing and detecting infected parts in the 5GB defense system. Our experimental results show that our cooperative defense systems exhibit high accuracy detection rates against network attacks, namely (distributed) denial of service and botnets while being robust against poisoning attacks and requiring a few overheads generated by defense systems. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose lightweight and accurate cooperative defense systems based on two-layer FL and non-cooperative games to enhance security against attackers in 5GB network slicing

Federated Learning-based Inter-slice Attack Detection for 5G-V2X Sliced Networks

As a leading enabler of 5G, Network Slicing (NS) aims at creating multiple virtual networks on the same shared and programmable physical infrastructure. Integrated with 5G-Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology, NS enables various isolated 5G-V2X networks with different requirements such as autonomous driving and platooning. This combination has generated new attack surfaces against Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs), leading them to road hazards and putting users' lives in danger. More specifically, such attacks can either intra-slice targeting the internal service within each V2X Network Slice (V2X-NS) or inter-slice targeting the cross V2X-NSs and breaking the isolation between them. However, detecting such attacks is challenging, especially inter-slice V2X attacks where security mechanisms should maintain privacy preservation and NS isolation. To this end, this paper addresses detecting inter-slice V2X attacks. To do so, we leverage both Virtual Security as a Service (VSaS) concept and Deep learning (DL) together with Federated learning (FL) to deploy a set of DL-empowered security Virtual Network Functions (sVNFs) over V2X-NSs. Our privacy preservation scheme is hierarchical and supports FL-based collaborative learning. It also integrates a game-theory-based mechanism to motivate FL clients (CAVs) to provide high-quality DL local models. We train, validate, and test our scheme using a publicly available dataset. The results show our scheme's accuracy and efficiency in detecting inter-slice V2X attacks

HPDM: A Hybrid Pseudonym Distribution Method for Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

AbstractProtecting the location privacy of drivers is still one of the main challenges in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs). The changing of pseudonym is commonly accepted as a solution to this problem. The pseudonyms represent fake vehicle identifiers. Roadside Units (RSUs) play a central role in the existing pseudonyms distribution solutions. Indeed, the VANET area should totally be covered by RSUs in order to satisfy the demand of vehicles in terms of pseudonyms. However, the total coverage is costly and hard to be achieved, especially in the first phase of VANETs deployment. In addition, RSUs could be overloaded due to the large number of pseudonyms requests that could be received from vehicles. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid pseudonyms distribution method, called HPDM that relies not only on RSUs but also on vehicles to perform the pseudonyms distribution. The analysis demonstrate that HPDM is privacy and accountability preserving. The performance evaluation of the proposed method is carried out using veins framework based on OMNet++ network simulator and SUMO mobility engine and shows its feasibility

A Survey on Machine Learning-based Misbehavior Detection Systems for 5G and Beyond Vehicular Networks

Advances in Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology and onboard sensors have significantly accelerated deploying Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). Integrating V2X with 5G has enabled Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) to CAVs. However, while communication performance has been enhanced, security and privacy issues have increased. Attacks have become more aggressive, and attackers have become more strategic. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) proposed by standardization bodies cannot solely defend against these attacks. Thus, in complementary of that, sophisticated systems should be designed to detect such attacks and attackers. Machine Learning (ML) has recently emerged as a key enabler to secure future roads. Various V2X Misbehavior Detection Systems (MDSs) have adopted this paradigm. However, analyzing these systems is a research gap, and developing effective ML-based MDSs is still an open issue. To this end, this paper comprehensively surveys and classifies ML-based MDSs as well as discusses and analyses them from security and ML perspectives. It also provides some learned lessons and recommendations for guiding the development, validation, and deployment of ML-based MDSs. Finally, this paper highlighted open research and standardization issues with some future directions

Software-Defined Location Privacy Protection for Vehicular Networks

While the adoption of connected vehicles is growing, security and privacy concerns are still the key barriers raised by society. These concerns mandate automakers and standardization groups to propose convenient solutions for privacy preservation. One of the main proposed solutions is the use of Pseudonym-Changing Strategies (PCSs). However, ETSI has recently published a technical report which highlights the absence of standardized and efficient PCSs [1]. This alarming situation mandates an innovative shift in the way that the privacy of end-users is protected during their journey. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is emerging as a key 5G enabler to manage the network in a dynamic manner. SDN-enabled wireless networks are opening up new programmable and highly-flexible privacy-aware solutions. We exploit this paradigm to propose an innovative software-defined location privacy architecture for vehicular networks. The proposed architecture is context-aware, programmable, extensible, and able to encompass all existing and future pseudonym-changing strategies. To demonstrate the merit of our architecture, we consider a case study that involves four pseudonym-changing strategies, which we deploy over our architecture and compare with their static implementations. We also detail how the SDN controller dynamically switches between the strategies according to the context

Intelligent Misbehavior Detection System for Detecting False Position Attacks in Vehicular Networks

Position falsification attacks are one of the most dangerous internal attacks in vehicular networks. Several Machine Learning-based Misbehavior Detection Systems (ML-based MDSs) have recently been proposed to detect these attacks and mitigate their impact. However, existing ML-based MDSs require numerous features, which increases the computational time needed to detect attacks. In this context, this paper introduces a novel ML-based MDS for the early detection of position falsification attacks. Based only on received positions, our system provides real-time and accurate predictions. Our system is intensively trained and tested using a publicly available data set, while its validation is done by simulation. Six conventional classification algorithms are applied to estimate and construct the best model based on supervised learning. The results show that the proposed system can detect position falsification attacks with almost 100% accuracy

On-Demand Security Framework for 5GB Vehicular Networks

Building accurate Machine Learning (ML) attack detection models for 5G and Beyond (5GB) vehicular networks requires collaboration between Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) nodes. However, while operating collaboratively, ensuring the ML model's security and data privacy is challenging. To this end, this article proposes a secure and privacy-preservation on-demand framework for building attack-detection ML models for 5GB vehicular networks. The proposed framework emerged from combining 5GB technologies, namely, Federated Learning (FL), blockchain, and smart contracts to ensure fair and trusted interactions between FL servers (edge nodes) with FL workers (vehicles). Moreover, it also provides an efficient consensus algorithm with an intelligent incentive mechanism to select the best FL workers that deliver highly accurate local ML models. Our experiments demonstrate that the framework achieves higher accuracy on a well-known vehicular dataset with a lower blockchain consensus time than related solutions. Specifically, our framework enhances the accuracy by 14% and decreases the consensus time, at least by 50%, compared to related works. Finally, this article discusses the framework's key challenges and potential solutions

A Lightweight 5G-V2X Intra-slice Intrusion Detection System Using Knowledge Distillation

As the automotive industry grows, modern vehicles will be connected to 5G networks, creating a new Vehicular-to-Everything (V2X) ecosystem. Network Slicing (NS) supports this 5G-V2X ecosystem by enabling network operators to flexibly provide dedicated logical networks addressing use case specific-requirements on top of a shared physical infrastructure. Despite its benefits, NS is highly vulnerable to privacy and security threats, which can put Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in dangerous situations. Deep Learning-based Intrusion Detection Systems (DL-based IDSs) have been proposed as the first defense line to detect and report these attacks. However, current DL-based IDSs are processing and memory-consuming, increasing security costs and jeopardizing 5G-V2X acceptance. To this end, this paper proposes a lightweight intrusion detection scheme for 5G-V2X sliced networks. Our scheme leverages DL and Knowledge Distillation (KD) for training in the cloud and offloading knowledge to slice-tailored lightweight DL models running on CAVs. Our results show that our scheme provides an optimal trade-off between detection accuracy and security overhead. Specifically, it can reduce security overhead in computation and memory complexity to more than 50% while keeping almost the same performance as heavy DL-based IDSs