Security Challenges in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is an advanced application to provide innovative transport services for smart city development. Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) is a part of ITS. In the VANET, vehicles are mobile nodes, and each vehicle is equipped with the onboard unit (OBU) through which it communicates with other vehicles and roadside unit (RSU) located in the roads. Vehicles communicate with other vehicles and roadside units for exchanging traffic intensity information, weather information, emergency alerts, change of route information, and more, for the better driving experience. Communications in VANET are classified into three types such as vehicle to vehicle communication (V2V), vehicle to roadside unit communication (V2R) and roadside unit to vehicle communication (R2V).

VANET provides better diving experience to the drivers and also adds challenges such as security, communication overhead, and computing overhead. As VANET is vulnerable to various attacks, security is one of the vital key issues in the deployment of VANET. When the wrong messages are communicated in V2V, V2R, or R2V communication, it will lead to serious traffic issues; it may lead to life and death of humans. Therefore, there is a need to enforce security, such as confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. Preserving privacy is the additional security requirement in VANET as drivers are not interested in revealing their privacy information.

This book will cover the domain of VANET and the various components of VANET along with security and authentication protocols, models, and systems being developed to secure the communications.