Distributed blockchain-based message authentication scheme for connected vehicles

Abstract

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) have several security issues such as privacy preservation, secure authentication, and system reliability. In the VANET, a vehicle communicates with other vehicles or infrastructures using broadcasting messages. These messages contain not only normal traffic information, but also identification information of sender. In general, the identification information remains encrypted to ensure privacy. However, the conventional centralized system can decrypt the identification information using private information of the sender vehicle. As a result, the central server can often be targeted by adversaries. We propose a message authentication scheme for anonymity and decentralization of information using blockchain technology. Here, we introduce public-private key and message authentication code (MAC) for secure authentication. In this paper, we adopt consensus algorithms for composing blockchain system such as the proof of work (PoW) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) into the proposed authentication process. Finally, we demonstrate that the proposed method is secure from the attacks which include impersonation from internal attacker as well as typical attacks.