Secure Protocol For Inter-Vehicle Communication Networks

Security is the main concern in wireless communications. Future vehicles may use wireless Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) networks to exchange data among each other. IVC networks provide drivers with updated information on traffic and road conditions for efficient and safe driving. The main challenges in designing secure IVC networks are vehicle authentication and data integrity. Vehicle authentication requires IVC networks to verify that the information is sent and received by trusted vehicles. Data integrity requires IVC networks to verify that the safety-critical information will be exchanged among vehicles without illegitimate changes to their contents. In this paper, we propose a secure protocol for IVC networks. The protocol is based on the public key cryptography. Our protocol provides mutual authentication of vehicles and data integrity to IVC networks. The paper presents a detailed description of our protocol and its feasibility study in terms of processing time and latency.