A Multi-Tier Trust-Based Security Mechanism for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network Communications

Securing communications in vehicle ad hoc networks is crucial for operations. Messages exchanged in vehicle ad hoc network communications hold critical information such as road safety information, or road accident information and it is essential these packets reach their intended destination without any modification. A significant concern for vehicle ad hoc network communications is that malicious vehicles can intercept or modify messages before reaching their intended destination. This can hamper vehicle ad hoc network operations and create safety concerns. The multi-tier trust management system proposed in this paper addresses the concern of malicious vehicles in the vehicle ad hoc network using three security tiers. The first tier of the proposed system assigns vehicles in the vehicle ad hoc network a trust value based on behaviour such as processing delay, packet loss and prior vehicle behavioural history. This will be done by selecting vehicles as watchdogs to observe the behaviour of neighbouring vehicles and evaluate the trust value. The second tier is to protect the watchdogs, which is done by watchdogs’ behaviour history. The third security tier is to protect the integrity of data used for trust value calculation. Results show that the proposed system is successful in identifying malicious vehicles in the VANET. It also improves the packet delivery ratio and end-to-end delay of the vehicle ad hoc network in the presence of malicious vehicles.