An Overview: Various Attacks in VANET

Abstract

In the current era of technological challenges in data transmission, there is a big need to identify the major components and tools which are used in transferring and receiving data for vehicular objects. Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) has become one of the most popular areas of research in past decades. Vehicles are connected in an adhoc manner in a wireless environment called VANET that is a subpart of MANET. Due to frequent change in topological structure, it is very difficult to make a VANET secure. In this research article, it is being observed that many security challenges are there where research have to step-up forward for making VANET more secure. A critical analysis is discussed broadly with respect to VANET components, security issues and challenges, attacks and its solutions.

Full text

An Overview: Various Attacks in VANET
Taskeen Zaidi1
Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University,
Deva Road,Barabanki
taskeenzaidi867@gmail.com
Syed.Faisal2
Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University,
Deva Road,Barabanki
Abstract—In the current era of technological challenges in
data transmission, there is a big need to identify the major
components and tools which are used in transferring and
receiving data for vehicular objects. Vehicular Ad-hoc
Network (VANET) has become one of the most popular areas
of research in past decades. Vehicles are connected in an ad-
hoc manner in a wireless environment called VANET that is a
subpart of MANET. Due to frequent change in topological
structure, it is very difficult to make a VANET secure. In this
research article, it is being observed that many security
challenges are there where research have to step-up forward
for making VANET more secure. A critical analysis is
discussed broadly with respect to VANET components,
security issues and challenges, attacks and its solutions.
Keywords—Ad-hoc, IEEE, IDS, RSU, AU, OBU, TA, V2V,
V2I, V2B, DOS, DDOS, Sybil.
I. INTRODUCTION AND RELATED WORK
With the day to day development in wireless topology
and importance of internet in our daily live exposed the need
of Wi-Fi environment, the one who ensure the safety of
human lives and provides guarantee of secure data
transmission, this lead to the development of new type of
wireless network called Vehicular Ad-hoc Network
(VANET), it ensures vehicular communication. The primary
objective of VANET is to develop a network between
vehicles and look after the communication between them
irrespective of the central base station. VANET is part of
Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET), VANET receive a lot of
attention because of the services proved by it namely sharing
information related to traffic, road safety information, and
other data (file, audio, video, etc.) using unintended internet
connectivity. One of the major application of VANET is in
the field of a medical emergency where there is a need to
pass the information regardless of infrastructure.
According to the data provided by Ministry of Road
Transport & Highways, Government of India, the estimated
number of death is about 1,50,785 people and hundreds of
thousand would have suffered traumatic injury across India
only in the year 2016[1].
It is being ascertained that if the driver gets some
warning before half a second of the accident, then an
accident can be avoidable [2]. VANET comes into light as a
solution to avoid these mishaps by proving some prior
information about the vehicles near to it.
The primary objective of VANET is to develop a
reliable, efficient and secure routing protocol, which
perform robustly in a highly dynamic environment even
VANET is under some attack.
VANET security comes into focus in the middle of 2000
and it gets bloomed in 2007. In recent years, numerous
research was proposed in the literature for presenting a
better solution to detect and analyze different network
attacks. We will address some of the research paper over
here
J.P. Hubaux et al. [3] describes how VANET help in
reducing road accidents, he also describes the components
required in smart vehicle for efficient data transmission. For
the authentication of smart vehicles, authors suggest using
electronic license plates and for the location verification,
they propose two methods, Tamper Proof GPS and second
one verifiable multi literation.
J.T. Issac, et al. [4] perform analysis on Security attacks
and solutions for vehicular ad hoc networks. Author discuss
may attack on the network, which were reported before
2010. Authoe proposed solution to prevent security attack
and vulnerability.
M.Burmester et al. [5] perform analysis on Strengthening
Privacy Protection in VANETs. They proposed a
cryptographic mechanism to establish a balance between
privacy and accountability in VANET. They predict this
approach to be hybrid and proposed symmetric and public
key operation for both of the cases authentication and
encryption.
J. T. Isaac et al for implementing a secure vehicular social
network an incentive protocol i.e. Pi is proposed by the
author [19] to tolerate vehicle delay and to improve the
performance for archiving the fairness among vehicles in the
social vehicular network
To detect and solve the Sybil attack in urban VANET a
footprint based mechanism proposed by the authors [21] so
that vehicles may generate a location-hidden trajectory for
location privacy while communicating through the message
passing
J. T. Isaac et al.[20] broadly discussed various security
threats and attacks. Author also discussed security
challenges with respect various attacks on VANET and
analyze security solutions, which has already proposed
previously.
Grover et al. [17] has detected the Sybil attack in realistic
scenario based VANET and evaluated the performance
through simulation code.
H. Lu et al.[18] propose an authentic framework for
securing the VANET. Authors propose an ID-based
2018 4th International Conference on Computing Communication and Automation (ICCCA)
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signature scheme, which used to authenticate nodes
uniquely in the network. As all nodes have, unique id’s so it
is easier to track any malicious node on the network.
C. Kerlof and D.Wagner [13] have described routing
security in an Ad-hoc network and peer-to-peer network.
Author perform attacks on network analyze the performance
and consequences of those attack, they propose security
goals and parameters of routing in a sensor network.
J. Newsome et al.[15] describe how Sybil attack affects the
whole network. Sybil attack is one of the most serious attack
as the nodes impersonate its self to be at multiple location.
Authors also describe types of Sybil attack on the network
and propose countermeasure against each type.
S. Park et al.[16] propose a defense mechanism against
Sybil attack. Authors suggest timestamp series approach to
detect a Sybil attack. Timestamp approach follows simple
principle that a vehicle holding single identity may not pass
through multiple RSU at same time and if it passes, then that
node treated as Sybil attack.
R. Hussain, H. Oh [14] deeply analyze the consequences of
Sybil attack and propose tamper resistant model (TRM) in
order to avoid Sybil attack and secure the network from
attackers.
R. Xiu-li, Y. Wei [22] propose a Sybil attack detection
approach for Vehicular ad-hoc network. In the proposed
approach, every node checks the range of their neighbor
node, if that range does not fit according to the parameter,
this shows a particular node is Sybil node. Then topology
takes countermeasure according to protocol.
K.F. Ssu et al. [23] discuss security challenges and effect of
Sybil attack in WSN. Authors propose a technique for
detection of Sybil attack where nodes identity verified by
analyzing the neighbors’ node table of its own.
Raya, M., and Hubaux [24] authors discuss the security
issues in VANET and propose some security solutions.
Authors also suggest a set of security protocols that protect
privacy and enhance the efficiency of the sensor network.
Muawia Abdelmagid Elsadig and Yahia A. Fadlalla,[25]
discuss numerous attacks on VANET in light of
performance, achievement and propose security solutions to
tackle these attacks.
Vimal Bibhu et al.[26] has described many attacks on the
network but primarily focusses on back hole attack. Author
did a performance evaluation of black hole attack in a
simulation environment.
II. BACKGROUND
A. VANET
VANET is a Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network also termed as
Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment (WAVE), which
is responsible for communication between vehicles and
infrastructure in a certain environment. While implementing
a VANET it is mandatory to implement a communication
protocol in an effective and ordered manner.
a) Components of VANET
The main components of vehicular ad-hoc network
are: On Board Unit (OBU), Road Side Units (RSU),
Trusted Authority (TA) and Application Units
(AU). Each component is crucial for implementing
VANET. Listed components of Vehicular Ad-hoc
Network are briefly explained below:
b) On-Board Unit (OBU)is equipped on every vehicle
supporting ITS. OBU is a network device, which is
fixed on vehicles and used for exchanging
information with nearby vehicles OBUs or with
Road Side Units. Sensors on Electronic control Unit
(ECU) collect information about vehicle and
surrounding then Application Unit (AU) process
that information and generate some messages based
on gathered information and share that information
with neighbor vehicle in order to eradicate any
miss-happening. OBU may connect to internet via
RSUs through DSRC radio or by Hotspot and in
absence of both OBUs can communicate with each
other via some cellular network [5].
c) Road Side Unit (RSU) standing for the base station
or act as the gateway between vehicles and road
services provided by VANET. For the reason that
RSUs are Static in nature as they have some fixed
range, so vehicle in that range only may
communicate with that RSU. The frequency and
distribution of RSUs are mainly depended on the
communication protocol utilized by it. RSU assist
Trusted Authority (TA) to revoke communication of
authorized node to unauthorized or malicious nodes
[6].
d) Trusted Authority (TA)is responsible for issuing
digital certificates to RSUs and vehicles, which
authenticate vehicle and RSU uniquely in the
vehicular ad-hoc network. To isolate untrusted
vehicles, Trusted Authority holds a list of malicious
vehicle and continuously advertise that list to the
network, in order to prevent those vehicles who are
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not allowed to participate in VANET because of its
malicious behavior in past[7].
e) Application Units (AU) is a device equipped in the
vehicle. The connection between AU and OBU may
be wired or wireless, in some cases, AU and OBU
may couple in a single chip. AU handles the
services provided by the provider mostly deals in
the safety application and personal digital assistance
(PDA).
B. In broad terms there is no fixed communication model or
architecture that a VANET must follow. VANET is very
different from MANET, as nodes in MANET are free to
move in any random fashion but in VANET vehicles or
nodes follow some fixed path like roads or highway on
which they are free to move.
Communication in VANET is closely categorized into 4
classes.
a) In-Vehicle Communication is more important with
respect to driver concern because it provides the
information related to vehicle health, performance and
driver’s fatigue and drowsiness that is essential for
driver and public safety.
b) Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication provides
communication between vehicles, where vehicles can
directly communicate with other vehicles, which
involves sending and receiving of messages.
c) Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication
depicts communication between vehicles and
infrastructure such as traffic light or Road Side Units
(RSU). RSUs are like routers that are fixed on the
roadside and have some horizontal height when it
receives some information form any vehicle it
transmits that information to the specified destination.
RSUs are placed at some fixed distance, this finite
distance between RSUs depends on the
communication limit of the RSUs devices. For the
effective communication, VANET prefers to use the
IEEE 802.11 standard.
d) Vehicle to broadband (V2B) communication defines
that vehicle might communicate via some wireless
broadband communication channel like HSPA(3G) or
Long Term Evolution(4G) because those broadband
clouds embrace additional traffic information and
monitoring data which is helpful in vehicle tracking
and active driver assistance[5].
III. VANET SECURITY
In this section, we present some security attributes for
VANET. Regarding security, these three attributes cannot be
ignored. Many research papers classify attacks on the basis
of authenticity, availability, and confidentiality.
A. Authenticity is crucial as it authenticates that message
was sent by authenticated vehicle. It is very essential to
ensure the authenticity of the sender of the message.
B. Availability ensures that communication channel and
network resource must be available even network may under
some attack without affecting the performance of the
network.
C.Confidentiality achieved by employing some
cryptographic technique on the messages. Confidentiality
refers to confidential communication. When a message is
transmitted after that only no other than authenticated
receiver may decrypt that message.
IV. SECURITY ATTACKS AND APPROACHES
In this section, we present different types of attack possible
on Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network. The Impact of attack on the
system depends on the efficiency of the attacker. These
attacks are unpredictable and can affect the lifesaving
application of VANET. These attacks can disrupt the entire
system or may modify the working of the system to obtain
the privilege of the system. On the basis of attacks performed
by an attacker over VANET, these attackers are classified
into following types [9]
A. Classification based on membership: On the basis of
membership there are two types of attackers are possible
The trusted nodes of a network, who used to communicate
with the other members of the network, are known as
Internal, these authorized members of the network perform
this attack in various ways. On the contrary, External does
not have direct access to communicate with the member of
the network; they have limited capacity to attack.
B. Classification based on Activity: On the basis of activity
attacker can be active or passive.
An Active attacker tries to alter the information of the
network by generating malicious packets or signals. This
type of attackers are much noxious than passive attackers.
Whereas Passive attackers only eavesdrop on the wireless
channel, they do not alter the network information.
C. On the basis of Intention:This describes the intention
behind the attack.
A rational attacker seeks personal benefit by imposing attack
over the network, these attacks are more predictable whereas
malicious attackers not gain any personal benefit, and their
intention is to damage the proper functioning of the network,
it’s difficult to foreseen malicious attack.
Based on
membership
Based on
Activity
Based on
Intension
Internal
External
Active
Passive
Rational
Malicious
ATTACKERS
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V. ATTACKS
There was countless number of attacks are possible on
VANET which may shut down the whole network or can
degrade the performance of the network. Some of the attacks
are explored below:
A. Denial of Service Attack (DOS):
In VANET availability of network is very essential where
all Vehicles rely on that. DOS is often one in all the foremost
serious attack in any network. The main motive of the DOS
attack is to prevent the services access by the authorized
user. In DOS attack attacker transmit several dummy
messages to jam the network in order to conceive attention or
to take privilege of the network or to disrupt the efficiency of
the network.
Fig 2. Denial of Service (DOS) Attack
Figure 2 shows that a malicious black car applies a DOS
attack to demolish the communication between V2V and V2I
by transmitting the dummy messages “Lane close ahead” to
the vehicles near to it and also transmit that dummy message
to nearest RSU. Because of this, legitimate cars on white
receive a false information and take their decision based on
false information.
B. Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attack:
DDOS attack is much savior attack than DOS in VANET
environment as mechanism of this attack is in distributed
environment. In DDOS attack multiple malicious vehicles
launch attack on a legitimate vehicle from different locations
and they may use different time slots for sending those
messages. That’s why it very difficult to prevent or trace this
attack.
Fig. 3 Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attack
Figure 3 demonstrates DDOS attack where malicious
cars in black launch DDOS attack on a legitimate car A form
different locations and at a different time because of that car
A cannot communicate with other trusted cars [9].
C. Black Hole Attack:
In this attack, malicious nodes in a network create an
area where the network traffic is redirected or message
packets are dropped. The malicious nodes transmit a
false routing information and pretend to have an
optimum route for the destination in order to attract
sender node. As the sender node transmits that packet,
malicious vehicles drop that packet or missus that
packet for their benefit [12].
Fig 4. Black Hole Attack
Figure illustrates black hole attack where legitimate cars D
and C send packets to malicious cars in black, these cars
create a black hole in the network and do not transmit that
packet to the other legitimate vehicles i.e E and F.
D. Wormhole attack:
This attack is a variation of black hole attack, in
wormhole attack legitimate cars receive data packet by the
malicious cars. In this attack, malicious cars create a
wormhole or tunnel between the sender and receiver with
minimum hope count and make that entry in the routing
table. When sender node needs to transmit data it looks for
the destination path with minimum hope count and it identify
the route with minimum hope count created by malicious
nodes and then start transmitting the data packets by that
route. As the communication between the sender and
receiver initiated through this malicious tunnel, so malicious
nodes have all the freedom either to drop that packet or just
listen the data packets or modify the data packet or use data
packet for their benefit.
Fig 5. Worm Hole Attack
Figure 5 shows the wormhole attack, where two black
malicious cars create a tunnel to transmit the data between
legitimate source and destination.
E. Illusion Attack:
In this attack, the attacker tries to deliberately manipulate his
vehicles reading or incorrect traffic information and transmit
that false reading to nearby vehicles and RSU. In VANET
driver behavior will depend on the warning messages it
receives, as driver receives false warning messages it may
change the driver behavior and can cause an accident, traffic
jam or can reduce the performance of the network by
manipulating network topology.
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Fig 6. Illusion Attack
Figure illustrates Illusion attack, where black malicious
car generates false traffic warning message and broadcast
that false message “accident ahead” to the neighbor vehicle
and even to RSU.
F. Timing Attack:
In VANET vehicles on the road need a real-time data so
if the information received at the correct time then it is worth
and if not then that information is worthless. So transmission
of data at the right time form source vehicle to destination
vehicle is important in order to achieve security and
integrity. In timing attack, if a malicious vehicle receives an
emergency message, they do not forward that message to the
destination instantly while it adds a time slot to the original
message in order to create a delay. Because of that receiver
vehicle receives the message after that actually it requires.
Fig 7. Timing Attack
Figure 7 shows timing attack on VANET network, where
a black malicious car receive a message “accident ahead”
form car D, it does not transmit that message at correct time,
when car F was actually at its right place instead transmit
that message by adding some time slot so whenever car F
receives that message it is on spot F1 where accident has
actually happened.
G. Man in Middle Attack:
In man in middle attack, malicious vehicles include
himself into the communication between two vehicles and
impersonate both the vehicles in order to gain the access of
the information that both vehicles were trying to send each
other and inject false information between vehicles, this
attack impersonate as it’s a normal exchange of information.
Fig 8. Man in Middle Attack
Figure 8 illustrates man in middle attack where black
malicious car C listens to the communication between B and
D and transmit false information to E.
H. Global Positioning System (GPS) Spoofing:
All the vehicles connected to VANET transmit a signal
to GPS satellite, the GPS satellite maintain a location table of
all the vehicles by the use of the location of vehicles and
vehicle unique identity within the network. In GPS spoofing
attack, attackers vehicle push a false reading in the GPS in
order to deceive other vehicle to think that they are at the
different location. In order to generate false signal vehicle
use GPS satellite simulator which generates a false signal
that was much stronger than those actual signal.
I. Social Attack:
All frail attack comes under this attack. In Social Attack,
the intention of the attacker is to indirectly compose a
problem for the users of the network. Attacker sends some
random messages “You are stupid” to the authentic user of
the network with the intention to change the behavior of the
user when authenticated user read those messages its
behavior get change from positive to negative angry
behavior[10].
J. Sybil Attack:
Sybil attack is a noxious attack, which was first
mentioned in context of a peer-to-peer network. In this, an
attacker creates an illusion of the existence of multiple false
vehicles in order to dominate over the whole network and
infect false information to harm the legitimate user or to
demolish the network performance. This attack is one of the
most serious attack, as the attacker claimed to be at the
different geographical location at the same time [10][11].
Fig 9. Sybil Attack
Figure 9 shows the Sybil attack where a black malicious
car creates an illusion of multiple vehicles on the road
because of that, other vehicles on the road realize that
there is a heavy traffic on the road. The impact of this
attack is serious because after spoofing vehicles identity
and location of the vehicle, an attacker can implement
any types of attack in the network.
VI. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
As we know motive behind implementation of VANET is
to improve efficiency and safety in transportation. To
transfer data between nodes VANET use wireless medium as
the medium is wireless there is good chance for attacker to
attack on the network and damage whole network. In the
current work, we have discussed VANET including its
components, types of communications etc. Then we discuss
prominent research issue and challenges like security and
attacks in VANET. The idea of this paper is to study the
research perspective on various attacks based on activity,
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Intension, and membership in VANET. In the future work,
we will extend our work to propose a feasible solution to
protect the Vehicles from Sybil attack under VANET.
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