A Trustworthiness of Traffic Data and Mobile Nodes using VANET

Abstract

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have the potential to transform the way people travel through
the creation of a safe interoperable wireless communications network that includes cars, buses, traffic signals,
cell phones, and other devices. However, VANETs are vulnerable to security threats due to increasing reliance
on communication, computing, and control technologies. The unique security and privacy challenges posed by
VANETs include integrity (data trust), confidentiality, non-repudiation, access control, real-time operational
constraints/demands, availability, and privacy protection. The trustworthiness of VANETs could be improved
by addressing holistically both data trust, which is defined as the assessment of whether or not and to what
extent the reported traffic data are trustworthy, and node trust, which is defined as how trustworthy the nodes
in VANETs are. In this paper, an Attack-Resistant Trust management scheme (ART) is proposed for VANETs
that is able to detect and cope with malicious attacks and also evaluate the trustworthiness of both data and
mobile nodes in VANETs. Specially, data trust is evaluated based on the data sensed and collected from
multiple vehicles; node trust is assessed in two dimensions, i.e., functional trust and recommendation trust,
which indicate how likely a node can fulfill its functionality and how trustworthy the recommendations from a
node for other nodes will be, respectively. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed ART scheme is
validated through extensive experiments. The proposed trust management theme is applicable to a wide range
of VANET applications to improve traffic safety, mobility, and environmental protection with enhanced
trustworthiness.