Secure Content Distribution in Vehicular Networks

Abstract: Dedicated short range communication (DSRC) relies on secure distribution to vehicles of a certificate revocation list (CRL) for enabling security protocols. CRL distribution utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications is preferred to an infrastructure-only approach. One approach to V2V CRL distribution, using rateless coding at the source and forwarding at vehicle relays is vulnerable to a pollution attack in which a few malicious vehicles forward incorrect packets which then spread through the network leading to denial-of-service. This paper develops a new scheme called Precode-and-Hash that enables efficient packet verification before forwarding thereby preventing the pollution attack. In contrast to rateless codes, it utilizes a fixed low-rate precode and random selection of packets from the set of precoded packets. The fixed precode admits efficient hash verification of all encoded packets. Specifically, hashes are computed for all precoded packets and sent securely using signatures. We analyze the performance of the Precode-and-Hash scheme for a multi-hop line network and provide simulation results for several schemes in a more realistic vehicular model.