On the security of warning message dissemination in vehicular Ad hoc networks

Abstract

Information security is an important issue in vehicular networks as the accuracy and integrity of information is a prerequisite to the satisfactory performance of virtually all vehicular network applications. We study the information security of a vehicular Ad hoc network whose message could be tampered by malicious vehicles. An analytical framework is developed to analyze the process of message dissemination in a vehicular network with malicious vehicles randomly distributed in the network. The probability that a destination vehicle at a fixed distance can receive the message correctly from the source vehicle is obtained. Simulations are conducted to validate the accuracy of the theoretical analysis. Our results demonstrate the impact of network topology and the distribution of malicious vehicles on the correct delivery of a message in vehicular Ad hoc networks, and provides insight on the design of security mechanisms to improve the security of message dissemination in vehicular networks.