Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs
Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are used for improving traffic efficiency and road safety. However, VANETs are vulnerable to various attacks from malicious vehicles. Malicious vehicles can disrupt the normal operation of VANET applications by broadcasting bogus event messages that may cause accid...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-06-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/12/5766 |
| _version_ | 1797592650669359104 |
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| author | Waheeb Ahmed Wu Di Daniel Mukathe |
| author_facet | Waheeb Ahmed Wu Di Daniel Mukathe |
| author_sort | Waheeb Ahmed |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are used for improving traffic efficiency and road safety. However, VANETs are vulnerable to various attacks from malicious vehicles. Malicious vehicles can disrupt the normal operation of VANET applications by broadcasting bogus event messages that may cause accidents, threatening people’s lives. Therefore, the receiver node needs to evaluate the authenticity and trustworthiness of the sender vehicles and their messages before acting. Although several solutions for trust management in VANETs have been proposed to address these issues of malicious vehicles, existing trust management schemes have two main issues. Firstly, these schemes have no authentication components and assume the nodes are authenticated before communicating. Consequently, these schemes do not meet VANET security and privacy requirements. Secondly, existing trust management schemes are not designed to operate in various contexts of VANETs that occur frequently due to sudden variations in the network dynamics, making existing solutions impractical for VANETs. In this paper, we present a novel blockchain-assisted privacy-preserving and context-aware trust management framework that combines a blockchain-assisted privacy-preserving authentication scheme and a context-aware trust management scheme for securing communications in VANETs. The authentication scheme is proposed to enable anonymous and mutual authentication of vehicular nodes and their messages and meet VANET efficiency, security, and privacy requirements. The context-aware trust management scheme is proposed to evaluate the trustworthiness of the sender vehicles and their messages, and successfully detect malicious vehicles and their false/bogus messages and eliminate them from the network, thereby ensuring safe, secure, and efficient communications in VANETs. In contrast to existing trust schemes, the proposed framework can operate and adapt to various contexts/scenarios in VANETs while meeting all VANET security and privacy requirements. According to efficiency analysis and simulation results, the proposed framework outperforms the baseline schemes and demonstrates to be secure, effective, and robust for enhancing vehicular communication security. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T01:56:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8a7cb52dde0b4acab5d943f6024417c9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T01:56:06Z |
| publishDate | 2023-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-8a7cb52dde0b4acab5d943f6024417c92023-11-18T12:35:48ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202023-06-012312576610.3390/s23125766Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETsWaheeb Ahmed0Wu Di1Daniel Mukathe2School of Computer Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, ChinaVehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are used for improving traffic efficiency and road safety. However, VANETs are vulnerable to various attacks from malicious vehicles. Malicious vehicles can disrupt the normal operation of VANET applications by broadcasting bogus event messages that may cause accidents, threatening people’s lives. Therefore, the receiver node needs to evaluate the authenticity and trustworthiness of the sender vehicles and their messages before acting. Although several solutions for trust management in VANETs have been proposed to address these issues of malicious vehicles, existing trust management schemes have two main issues. Firstly, these schemes have no authentication components and assume the nodes are authenticated before communicating. Consequently, these schemes do not meet VANET security and privacy requirements. Secondly, existing trust management schemes are not designed to operate in various contexts of VANETs that occur frequently due to sudden variations in the network dynamics, making existing solutions impractical for VANETs. In this paper, we present a novel blockchain-assisted privacy-preserving and context-aware trust management framework that combines a blockchain-assisted privacy-preserving authentication scheme and a context-aware trust management scheme for securing communications in VANETs. The authentication scheme is proposed to enable anonymous and mutual authentication of vehicular nodes and their messages and meet VANET efficiency, security, and privacy requirements. The context-aware trust management scheme is proposed to evaluate the trustworthiness of the sender vehicles and their messages, and successfully detect malicious vehicles and their false/bogus messages and eliminate them from the network, thereby ensuring safe, secure, and efficient communications in VANETs. In contrast to existing trust schemes, the proposed framework can operate and adapt to various contexts/scenarios in VANETs while meeting all VANET security and privacy requirements. According to efficiency analysis and simulation results, the proposed framework outperforms the baseline schemes and demonstrates to be secure, effective, and robust for enhancing vehicular communication security.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/12/5766blockchainauthenticationcontext awarenesstrust managementvehicular ad hoc network (VANET) |
| spellingShingle | Waheeb Ahmed Wu Di Daniel Mukathe Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs Sensors blockchain authentication context awareness trust management vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) |
| title | Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs |
| title_full | Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs |
| title_fullStr | Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs |
| title_short | Blockchain-Assisted Privacy-Preserving and Context-Aware Trust Management Framework for Secure Communications in VANETs |
| title_sort | blockchain assisted privacy preserving and context aware trust management framework for secure communications in vanets |
| topic | blockchain authentication context awareness trust management vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/12/5766 |
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