The rise of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) enhances road safety and traffic management but introduces security vulnerabilities like impersonation and data tampering. Traditional identity management systems such as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) are limited by their reliance on centralized authorities. This paper proposes a decentralized framework using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), Verifiable Credentials (VCs), and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), integrating Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to secure identity management in V2X systems. The proposed framework achieves robust authentication, mitigates centralization risks, and enables privacy-preserving mechanisms, demonstrating enhanced scalability and resilience against attacks in V2X communication.
The increasing connectivity and complexity of automotive systems require enhanced mechanisms for firmware updates to ensure security and integrity. Traditional methods are insufficient for modern vehicles that require seamless over-the-air (OTA) updates. Current OTA mechanisms often lack robust security measures, leaving vehicles vulnerable to attacks. This paper proposes an innovative approach based on the use of decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) for secure OTA firmware updates of on-vehicle software. By utilizing DIDs for unique vehicle identification, as well as verifiable credentials (VCs) and verifiable presentations (VPs) for secure information exchange and verification, the solution ensures the integrity and authenticity of software updates. It also allows for the revocation of specific updates, if necessary, thereby improving overall security. The security analysis applied the STRIDE methodology, which enabled the identification of potential threats, including spoofing, tampering, and privilege escalation. The results showed that our solution effectively mitigates these threats, while a performance evaluation indicated low latency during operations.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are one of the most popular and effective systems in various industrial applications such as surveillance, security, and infrastructure inspection. It is gradually becoming an essential part of navigation as a consequence of high progress in military and civilian missions. Path planning of UAVs in military and civilian missions or in unknown and restricted environments is one of the biggest problems facing the operation of UAVs. This problem is not only searching for a path from an initial point to the final but also linked to find an optimal among all possible paths and provides collision avoidance. By examining the best path for UAVs, there is a need for the consideration of various other issues such as security and privacy, turning angle, overtake speed of obstacle, etc. The fundamental problem of UAVs is finding an optimal and secure route in a challenging environment. To overcome these challenges, many researchers have used optimization techniques such as ant colony, particle swarm, artificial bee colony, etc. with planning and coordination. In this paper, a blockchain-based solution is used to secure and authenticate UAVs. Hence, we propose a blockchain-based method that uses a genetic algorithm, which solves both constrained and unconstrained optimization problems. The purpose of this technique is to locate the best possible flight path for the UAVs in a three-dimensional setting. In a genetic algorithm, each iteration is designed to surpass the previous one in terms of improvement. To achieve an ideal route, solving the travelling salesman problem is a crucial step in the proposed approach. Consequently, the blockchain technology offers a reliable wireless communication and a dependable network for UAVs path planning, guaranteeing efficient service. Simulation results demonstrate the impact of the proposed scheme. They show that a genetic algorithm is suitable for optimal path planning for UAVs.
Gopal Singh Rawat, Karan Singh, Mohd Shariq, Ashok Kumar Das · 6 authors
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) dwell on Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) for message dissemination to achieve the goal of traffic safety and efficiency. VANETs achieve communication among vehicles and roadside units via wireless communication. Hence, security and privacy are significant concerns to be addressed for an effective application of secure VANETs in any ITS. Researchers have addressed these issues with trust management-based schemes or cryptography-based schemes. While these schemes can secure VANETs, they have various limitations presenting hindrances in their deployment. In this context, we have proposed a Blockchain-assisted Trust Computation with a Conditional Privacy-preserving Authentication (BTC2PA) scheme for connected vehicles. The BTC2PA scheme uses a blockchain (Ethereum) assisted PKI infrastructure with digital signatures to achieve authentication for secure communication. Furthermore, it integrates a trust score computation scheme based on a reward and punishment mechanism to provide resistance against internal attacks. The feasibility and validity of the proposed BTC2PA scheme have been studied by implementation work in Rinkeby (Ethereum test network) and extensive simulations using NS-3. The results obtained show that the proposed BTC2PA scheme meets the security and privacy requirements while significantly improving the performance metrics such as communication, storage, computation cost, and end-to-end delay when compared to existing schemes.
Communication between vehicles, known as Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication, plays a critical role in enhancing traffic management and road safety by facilitating the real-time exchange of vital information. While traditional methods like Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) have proven effective, they are not without limitations, particularly concerning privacy and security. Emerging technologies such as 5G and Blockchain offer promising solutions to address these challenges. This study explores the integration of Blockchain technology into V2V communication systems to improve data security, reliability, and privacy. Blockchain’s decentralized nature inherently ensures data integrity and transparency, while smart contracts automate processes, guaranteeing secure and efficient data transmission. The proposed framework targets the optimization of V2V communication by leveraging Blockchain’s unique features, including data security, immutability, and decentralization. The primary objective is to develop a Blockchain-enabled system that facilitates secure communication channels between vehicles. This system will incorporate functionalities such as user and vehicle registration, authentication, and efficient communication algorithms. This research contributes significantly to the establishment of a robust V2V communication framework, ultimately paving the way for improved road safety and traffic management.
In the rapidly evolving domain of connected vehicles, ensuring robust security and efficient data management is paramount. Traditional centralized architectures struggle with latency, scalability, and vulnerability to single points of failure. This research proposes a novel Blockchain-Integrated Security Framework (BISF) for fog networking in connected vehicles. The BISF leverages blockchain technology to enhance data integrity, transparency, and security while utilizing fog computing to reduce latency and improve real-time data processing. The proposed framework integrates smart contracts for automated trust management and distributed ledgers for immutable data records. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of BISF in enhancing security, reducing latency, and improving overall network performance compared to traditional centralized approaches.
Deokkyu Kwon, Seunghwan Son, Kisung Park, Ashok Kumar Das · 5 authors
Multi-domain vehicle to grid (V2G) is a network environment in which numerous service providers offer charging and discharging services to EV users. This can enhance energy management and traffic flow for efficient intelligent transportation systems (ITS). However, the combination of multiple domains can suffer from various security vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for robust countermeasures. Moreover, existing multi-domain V2G protocols utilized a central trusted authority (TA) which can create a single point of failure (SPOF), or required high computational resources. In this paper, we propose a multi-domain authentication protocol for secure and efficient V2G services using consortium blockchain. The proposed protocol provides lightweight intra-domain authentication using hash functions and XOR operators. Furthermore, the proposed protocol ensures secure cross-domain authentication by integrating elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and physical unclonable function (PUF). Therefore, the proposed protocol can establish trust, enable efficient communications, and prevent congestion at charging stations. To validate security robustness, comprehensive evaluations are conducted using “Real-Or-Random (ROR) model”, “Scyther tool”, and informal analyses. Comparative computational overheads of the proposed and related protocols are measured using “Multiprecision Integer and Rational Arithmetic Cryptographic Library (MIRACL)” testbed experiments. Additionally, a simulation of the practical deployment is conducted using “Network Simulator-3 (NS-3)”. Results indicate that the proposed protocol can improve ITS by providing secure and efficient services for multi-domain V2G environments.
Chien‐Ming Chen, Yiru Hao, Saru Kumari, Mohammed Amoon
Consumer electronics play a crucial role in the automotive sector by providing the essential hardware infrastructure necessary for developing autonomous vehicles. These vehicles significantly enhance driving comfort and accessibility, particularly benefiting specific populations such as the elderly and individuals with disabilities. Researchers utilize federated learning, employing homomorphic encryption and differential privacy techniques; however, these methods can impede efficiency. Traditional centralized federated learning presents a risk of single points of failure. To address this issue, we propose an authentication protocol for federated learning, integrated with blockchain technology, within consumer electronics-supported autonomous driving environments. This protocol enhances vehicle authentication efficiency while prioritizing data security and user privacy. Formal analysis verifies the integrity of the protocol. Experimental results demonstrate that the communication overhead of our protocol is reduced by 40.3% compared to existing similar authentication protocols.
Internet of Drones (IoD) has become crucial due to the surge of drone-based applications. In a dynamic wireless network, drones often share data with multiple users, which is vulnerable to various security threats, e.g., eavesdropping, privacy leakage, and impersonation. Ensuring secure sharing of drone operation data is a critical issue. Existing schemes employ blockchain to ensure accountability in untrusted IoD contexts. However, drones perform excessive operations, e.g., consensus and homomorphic encryption, leading to impractical drone computation overhead. Furthermore, these existing schemes perform point-to-multipoint (P2MP) data sharing by using identity-based broadcast encryption (IBBE) as it has stateless receiver property, i.e., drones can directly establish sharing groups based on the receiver identities. However, these IBBE-based schemes need to preset the sharing group capacity, reducing sharing efficiency and flexibility in dynamic IoD networks. Also, identities in sharing groups probably result in receiver privacy breaches. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-assisted data-sharing scheme with accountability and privacy-preserving for IoD networks. We utilize on-chain immutable smart contracts and short signatures to construct a lightweight accountability mechanism that can verify and punish the above misbehavior. We develop an efficient privacy-preserving IBBE algorithm for P2MP sharing of drone operation data that enables dynamic group sharing. We prove that our algorithm is secure and receiver anonymity against chosen ciphertext attacks. The experiment results show that our scheme outperforms existing schemes in computational and communication overhead. In real-world logistics scenarios, the wireless data rate of 50Mbps can satisfy the communication requirements for ciphertext lengths up to 19.5KB. For a sharing group of 60 receivers, drone encryption costs only about 101 ms. The decryption cost remains constant and takes about 3.1 ms.
Stefano Avola, Pierpaolo Baglietto, Massimo Maresca, A. Ferretto Parodi
Permissioned Blockchains have been proposed and assessed as a novel and promising approach for improving data sharing, trust, and integration in the context of industrial consortia. One of the reasons that are often considered an obstacle to the adoption of this technology is given by the data privacy and confidentiality issues raised by exposing business transactions details and business relationships in a shared distributed ledger. In this paper we propose a solution based on a specific Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) feature, the Private Collections, which supports data privacy and confidentiality while keeping the advantages that the Blockchain distributed architecture brings.
In recent years, with the increasing integration of intelligent modules into vehicles, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have increasingly assumed a pivotal role in augmenting driver safety. As an ITS, vehicle ad hoc networks (VANETs) not only establish a secure traffic environment for users but also provides them with an efficient means of exchanging traffic information. However, during vehicle communication processes, security challenges such as the leakage of vehicle privacy information and tampering with shared task information must be addressed. Therefore, this paper proposes a decentralized anonymous authentication and secure traffic task information-sharing scheme based on blockchain and zk-SNARK. Specifically, the proposed scheme utilizes blockchain technology and the interplanetary file system (IPFS) to securely and efficiently store and share task information in a fully decentralized manner. Vehicle users anonymously participate in tasks within VANETs using pseudonym information generated during registration with a trusted authority (TA). Additionally, by employing zk-SNARK to generate zero-knowledge proofs, the validity and integrity of task information can be verified without revealing any private information. Performance comparisons indicate that the proposed scheme enhances the security of vehicle-to-roadside unit (V2R) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications while reducing communication and computational costs.
Vehicular platooning offers several advantages and plays an important role in the future of mobility. However, this technology is vulnerable to several attacks. Since vehicles can freely join and leave a platoon, it is important to ensure that only legitimate vehicles are admitted into a platoon. In this paper, we propose a mutual authentication protocol to securely admit vehicles into a platoon. The proposed protocol is built on the concepts of Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs). Each vehicle creates its DID which helps to achieve vehicle identity privacy. The vehicles must register with a Trusted Authority (TA) to join platoons. The TA issues a VC to the registered vehicle. The platoon leader and the vehicle joining the platoon verify each other’s VC before the vehicle joins the platoon. The security analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol ensures secure platoon admission and preserves the privacy of vehicles. We also provide a proof of concept implementation of the blockchain network for the proposed scheme using Ethereum. We use the online Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Remix to compile and run the smart contract written in Solidity code for the proof of concept implementation. A performance analysis of the proposed protocol shows that its computation cost is less than that of other existing schemes for platoon admission.
The advancements in telematics and communication technology for automobiles have contributed to the development of Vehicular ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). These networks serve as the foundation for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Communication across various VANET entities is challenging due to the open communication environment and the highly dynamic nature of VANETs. One of the major challenges in VANETs is ensuring stable and secure transmission. To address these factors, several studies have been conducted. The article discusses a clustering algorithm for VANETs that leverages SCVAN-DPSO to create stable clusters and provide secure communication for mitigating malicious nodes. Additionally, Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography (HECC) with signcryption in blockchain is proposed. This algorithm is designed to identify and mitigate malicious nodes, ensuring robust and secure communication within the network. To verify vehicles in VANETs, this study also suggests a safe and reliable key management method that generates and stores cryptographic keys using blockchain’s distributed ledger technology. By doing so, the risk of rogue nodes is reduced, and a safe, stable connection between vehicles is guaranteed. This work has been implemented using NS 3.34 simulation with the SUMO real-time traffic mobility simulator, and its performance has been evaluated. The proposed algorithm SCVAN-BKM provides a 99.6 % packet delivery ratio for 20 nodes, 0.4 % packet loss, end-to-end delay of 32.65 ms, throughput of 9.522 Mbps, and a cluster lifetime of 105 s. As the number of nodes increases in the communication zone, stable communication is maintained due to the clustering algorithm used in the proposed approach, as cluster formation supports stability in the high-mobility nature of vehicles, while secure communication is ensured using blockchain technology. The findings demonstrate that our approach is more effective and yields better outcomes than existing systems.
Open access
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
This research study introduces an innovative Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication system utilizing Ethereum blockchain and Solidity smart contracts. The proposed approach transcends conventional vehicular communication systems by integrating the inherent security and transparency of blockchain technology. This integration aims to revolutionize V2X interactions, encompassing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications, ensuring enhanced security, reliability, and immutability of data exchanged in urban traffic environments. The foundation of our system is a strong Solidity smart contract deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. This contract orchestrates the V2X communication, providing a decentralized and tamper-proof platform for transmitting and receiving data across various urban traffic entities. The practical application of this system is demonstrated through simulations in an urban environment created in Netedit, with various traffic scenarios evaluated using the Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) software.
Recently, with the popularity of Internet of vehicles (IoV), there is an increasing market demand for integrating blockchain technology and smart contracts in electric vehicles. By utilizing distributed blockchain and smart contract technology, it provides data integrity preservation, traceability, and prevention of forgery. These features can be effectively used in the automated charging system. As a result, IoV can utilize blockchain and smart contract technologies to facilitate seamless payment for charging fees, tolls, parking fees, online shopping and other associated expenses without the need for intermediaries. However, since blockchain and smart contracts operate in an open internet environment, there is a risk of tampering with transaction records. Therefore, enhancing security becomes a crucial concern. The main aim of this study is to emphasize the growing significance of securing transactions and smart contracts in an open transmission environment to prevent potential damage or alteration. In order to achieve the implementation of secure smart contracts within a resource-constrained IoV, this study investigates various cryptographic mechanisms and realizes the elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) is widely recognized for providing strong security with shorter key lengths compared to other public key cryptography methods. This makes it ideal for environments with limited resources. Furthermore, in order to enhance the performance of smart contracts, this study proposes a cloud server architecture for parallel storage of smart contracts to improve access speed. Additionally, we introduce an automated trading framework for smart contracts that operates without human intervention. Finally, this study uses ECC to ensure the secure transmission of transaction data among the vehicle, base station, and cloud server, as well as to provide mutual verification of identities across all entities involved in the operation. As a result, this study proposes a secure architecture for blockchain and smart contracts that can autonomously initiate transactions while ensuring secure transmission and protection in the IoV.
Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Security is an important consideration when delivering information-aware messages to vehicles that are far away from the current location of the information-sending vehicle. This information helps the receiver to save fuel and time by making wise decisions to avoid damaged or blocked roads. To ensure the safety and security of this type of information using blockchain technology, we propose a new cognitive vehicular communication scheme to transfer messages from source to destination. Due to spectrum scarcity in vehicular networks, there needs to be a wireless medium available for every communication link since vehicles require it to communicate. The primary user (PU) makes a public announcement about a free channel to all secondary users nearby and only gives it to authentic vehicles. The authenticity of vehicles is guaranteed by a roadside unit (RSU) that offers secure keys to any vehicle that joins this blockchain network. Those who participate in this network must pay a certain amount and receive rewards for their honesty that exceed the amount spent. To test the performance of various parameters, the proposed scheme utilizes the Ethereum smart contract and compares them to blockchain and non-blockchain methods. Our results show a minimum delivery time of 0.16 s and a minimum overhead of 350 bytes in such a dynamic vehicle environment.
The concept of a Smart City involves transparent information exchange between decentralized cyber environments using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Unlike a centralized database, the distributed ledger does not require a central administrator and therefore does not have a single (central) point of failure. However, this technology has the following problems: (1) majority attacks on DLT systems; (2) assessment of the current level of DLT system security; (3) constant growth in blockchain file size. As a result of the analysis of studies devoted to solving these issues, it was found that today the known solutions have a number of limitations that do not allow them to completely solve these problems. The paper reviews a new approach aimed at consistently solving these challenges. To protect DLT systems in Smart Cities against majority attacks, the method based on dynamic neutralization of the destructive effects of the intruder is proposed. To assess the security level of DLT systems, a method based on calculating the performance of DLT nodes is discussed. To reduce the volume of the block graph, there is presented a new structure of a DLT system. An experimental study has shown the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
At the current stage of autonomous driving, monitoring the behavior of safety stewards (drivers) is crucial to establishing liability in the event of an accident. However, there is currently no method for the quantitative assessment of safety steward behavior that is trusted by multiple stakeholders. In recent years, deep-learning-based methods can automatically detect abnormal behaviors with surveillance video, and blockchain as a decentralized and tamper-resistant distributed ledger technology is very suitable as a tool for providing evidence when determining liability. In this paper, a trusted supervision paradigm for autonomous driving (TSPAD) based on multimodal data authentication is proposed. Specifically, this paradigm consists of a deep learning model for driving abnormal behavior detection based on key frames adaptive selection and a blockchain system for multimodal data on-chaining and certificate storage. First, the deep-learning-based detection model enables the quantification of abnormal driving behavior and the selection of key frames. Second, the key frame selection and image compression coding balance the trade-off between the amount of information and efficiency in multiparty data sharing. Third, the blockchain-based data encryption sharing strategy ensures supervision and mutual trust among the regulatory authority, the logistic platform, and the enterprise in the driving process.