Blockchain Based Security for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2020
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The speedy aggrandizement in Wireless communication technologies concurrently with immediate measure requisites to improve road safety have expedited a considerable development in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). ITS came into existence with a strong perspective to provide end-to-end, better, worthier, safer, efficient and much more improved transport services, both on-road and off-road. Intelligent communication technologies such as trip guiding smart phone applications (that direct you how much to walk before you take the next bus or train, where to get down, etc.), the latest safety oriented in vehicle systems (such as Anti-Lock Braking systems, air bags, Navigation systems, etc.), are all part of the ITS.
Therefore, ITS is not just about modifying or repairing the age-old infrastructures of roads, highways, stations, or bus stops, but persuading security and safety of transport to all the people and goods travelling on roads.
With increasing congestion increased the accidents, which made the government authorities, and the automobile manufacturers realize the need and embryonic benefits that can be exploited by means of wireless communications merged with in-vehicular capabilities, consequently, resulting in the formation of Vehicular communication networks termed as ‘𝗩𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗔𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝗰 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀’ (VANETS).
VANETS are therefore, an emerging promising technology of the ITS due to its potential benefits for travel planning, notifying road hazards, cautioning of emergency scenarios, alleviating congestion, provisioning parking facilities and environmental predicaments. Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications rely on what is called as the DSRC (Dedicated Short-Range Communications). A vehicle periodically broadcasts its position, speed, ID/Pseudo-ID, direction, etc. to other neighboring vehicles at 1-10Hz. These messages are called as Cooperative safety messages or beacon messages. The aim for all these vehicular applications is the ultimate driver assistance and safety to avoid any discomfort and mis happenings. Therefore, to ensure that only accurate alerts, warnings, or messages reach the drivers, without any false data injections or message alterations, security implementations are essential. If attackers send any false warning alerts, say for e.g. Impersonating an authorized user attacker broadcasts an accident alert in his area, it can cause unnecessary havoc among the road users and route diversions which were not required. Also, the authentication of the network users along with privacy perseverance is the most important security consideration. Therefore, security implementation is the foremost necessity in VANETs.
In VANETS, information is widely available across multiple systems and is accessible with appropriate authentication and access rights. But, to have access, users need to connect in the wireless environment, which poses various security challenges. This thesis investigates the security challenges and limitations to secure VANET and how the existing solutions can be improved upon. Blockchain has emerged as the solution to securing identity and authentication along with access control among the network entities.
This thesis is a work to secure the VANET network, by authenticating, revocating, and establishing trust among the users using the shared Blockchain Ledger, to enable them to get emergency updates and transmit only if they are authorized users, while they travel on road. This work identifies the trustworthy nodes using blockchain and smart contracts and store their reputation in the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) storage in a transparent manner, so the reputation score is available to all the nodes without relying on the centralized infrastructure for computation or storage. The thesis provides a detailed review of existing trust and privacy works and merges the neural networks with blockchain to provide the classification of trustworthy nodes as well as providing privacy to the data, by sanitizing the data prior to transmission. The thesis is a work to secure communication in the network to provide end-end security. The proposed model guarantees privacy and security to the information transmitted and multi-level trust evaluation of the nodes before sharing any information. The thesis is divided in three phases of research with blockchain and smart contracts finally demonstrating that our solutions not only strengthen and secure the dynamic VANET, but also significantly improve the performance and efficiency as compared to existing approaches.
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