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International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, 6, 45-62 45

A Survey on VANETs Security Attacks and Sybil Attack Detection

Chaitanya Kumar Karn* and Chandra Prakash Gupta

Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University College of Engineering,

RTU, Kota, India

Abstract: With increase in human population and economic development, population

of private vehicles on road has also increased. This has resulted in increased accident
probability and fatalities on the roads. Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have
shown promise of bringing down road accidents and fatalities thereof by enabling
communication between vehicles. VANETs also allow the road operators to control
and monitor vehicles for rash driving and quick relief. However, these networks face challenges of
Design, Routing, Communication and Security. Use of wireless medium for communication has left
these networks vulnerable to different type of security attacks. One of the important vulnerability in
such networks is caused when a malicious vehicle or RSU is able to acquire multiple identities. The
attack is termed as Sybil Attack. In VANETs, a malicious vehicle may send wrong messages related
to traffic, accident ahead, road closed, etc. This may force the motor driver to take a different route
thus making him prone to an untoward incident. In this paper, we present a survey on different detec-
tion schemes for detecting Sybil attack. Comparison among these schemes is also presented.
Keywords: Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs), VANETs Architecture, Security Attacks, Sybil At-
tack detection.

1. INTRODUCTION WAVE, (i.e. 1609 standards family to Wireless

In recent times, a large number of people are
using private vehicles for transport. This results in
an increase in the number of road accidents. Every
year, around 1.3 million people die in road acci-
dents worldwide [1]. Road safety can be improved
by interchanging the traffic data among the vehi-
cles. Data exchange among vehicles can be
achieved by creating communication networks
comprising of the moving vehicles. Creating such
networks requires features like self-configuration
and maintaining network connectivity between
mobile vehicles [2]. The network is realized em-
ploying Road Side Units (RSUs) and using Dedi-
cated Short Range Communication (DSRC). The
whole communication is completed by using
*Address correspondence to this author at the Department of
Computer Science & Engineering, University College of
Engineering, RTU, Kota, India; Tel: +91 9929012644;
E-mail: ck2009it@gmail.com
Access in Ad hoc Environment) [3]. Such net-
works are termed as Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks
(VANETs).
Wide range of safety as well as non-safety ap-
plications has been utilized in VANET enabling
services like information exchange about accidents
to diminish the variance and thus saving lives.
Other services corresponding to VANETs are au-
tomatic toll payment, warning drivers about drastic
road conditions, finding the best available route,
guided navigation and traffic management in order
to save time as well as fuel. Data sharing reduces
accidents and also contributes in proving comfort,
information and entertainment to the travelers.
Design of VANETs poses several challenges to
the designers. These challenges range from choos-
ing appropriate architecture to establishing reliable
communication in VANET. As the vehicles move
at high speeds, marinating communication is also
challenging. The other important challenge is with

2210-3287/16 $58.00+.00 © 2016 Bentham Science Publishers

46 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
regard to data integrity and ensuring protection
against other security threats.
In Sybil attack, adversary may assume multiple
identities and may create an illusion of traffic con-
gestion. In this paper, we present a survey of tech-
niques developed for detection on Sybil attack in
VANETs.
1.1. Organization of the Paper
Section 2 gives a review of VANETs and Ar-
chitecture of VANETs. Section 3 describes the dif-
ferent challenges of vehicular networks. Section 4
gives a review on Security issues and Attacks.
Section 5 describes the Sybil Attack detection
techniques and gives a comparison among them.
Finally, Section 6 concludes the paper with some
future directions.
2. VEHICULAR AD HOC NETWORKS
(VANETs)
SUN Microsystems, Inc. defines MANET
(Mobile Ad hoc Network) as a self-configurable,
infrastructure-less network of wireless mobile de-
vices. In MANET, mobile wireless devices are
represented as node with irregular moving pattern
and low mobility. For the purpose of people’s
safety VANET is specifically designed as a sub-
class of MANET [4].
2.1. VANETs
It is a challenging subclass of MANET which
enables intelligent communication among vehicles
and also between vehicle and roadside infrastruc-
tures. It is a promising approach for the Intelligent
Transport System (ITS). It has a very high dynam-
ic topology and constrained mobility which makes
the traditional MANET protocols unsuitable for
VANET. Wireless LAN, ad hoc network, cellular
technology and other specific fields have been in-
tegrated by VANET in order to achieve intelligent
V2V (Vehicle-to-Vehicle) and V2I (Vehicle-to-
Infrastructure) communication.
VANET differ from MANET on a number of
parameters [5]. In MANET, mobile wireless de-
vices are represented as node with irregular mov-
ing pattern and low mobility; whereas in VANET,
vehicles employ as nodes to create a mobile net-
work with mostly regular moving pattern and
higher mobility. In VANET network topology can
change repeatedly because of vehicular node’s
high mobility, whereas in MANET topology
Karn and Gupta
changes slowly. MANET addressing schemes are
based on attributes and VANET emphasize the
location of the nodes. VANET has a high produc-
tion cost in comparison to MANET because of
On-board Units (OBUs), GPS receivers, Road
Side Units (RSUs) etc. The communication range
of nodes in MANET is up to 100 meters with low
mobility of nodes whereas in VANETs it is up to
500 meters with high node mobility resulting in a
short duration of node connections. The highly
dynamic nodes generating collision in the wireless
medium results in packet delay as well as packet
loss very frequently and so there is a necessity to
develop a set of effective mechanisms which could
guarantee time sensitive communication in a de-
prived time period. This specific network must be
coupled with relevant security architecture that
forbids various types of security attacks.
2.2. Charectristics of VANETs
These are the following characteristics of
VANET [1, 3, 7]:
1) High mobility: The nodes in VANET ordinarily
change with different speed and direction. Due
to high speed of nodes it is difficult to predict
the node’s position and also to protect the vehi-
cle’s privacy. Vehicles mobility pattern relies
mainly on speed of vehicle, road structure, traf-
fic environment and driver’s driving behavior.
2) Network Topology change quickly: Position of
vehicular node as well as the network topology
gets transformed intermittently, because of the
high mobility and random velocity of vehicles.
As the vehicles move at a fast pace, especially
on roads and highways, they remain within
each other’s communication range for a very
short span of time thereby links are established
and broken very fast. Basically, changes in
network topology depend on the driver activi-
ties, and driver activities depend on received in-
formation condition from the other vehicles in
the network.
3) Communication Environment: In VANET
nodes connect and exchange information via
wireless medium. If we consider a sparse net-
work, buildings and trees tend to be vanished
just like near a highway. While in the case of
dense network, buildings and trees specifically
behave as obstacles and so different approaches
are required.
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 47
4) Network size: The implementation of VANET
can expand to several cities and even countries
and so the network size of VANET is geo-
graphically confounded.
5) Time critical: Time criticalities denote that the
information must be delivered to the vehicles
within the specified time limit. After getting in-
formation the vehicular node is able to perform
the respective actions in time.
6) Frequent information exchange: In VANET
data information is more important to make a
decision, so exchange of information between
vehicles and RSU (Road Side Unit) is required
with frequent disconnection.
7) Computational capability: Vehicles are
equipped with sufficient sensors for sensing in-
formation and computational resources like
processors, bulk memory storage and GPS sys-
tem, etc. These specified resources escalate the
computation capability of the vehicle or nodes,
which helps in obtaining the exact information.
2.3. VANETs Architecture
VANET system components comprise of appli-
cation unit (AUs), Road side unit (RSUs) and On
Board Unit (OBUs) [7].
1) Application units (AUs): Application Unit (AU)
is a gadget or device inside the vehicle that can
use applications granted by the RSU via OBU
support. The Application Unit may be consid-
ered as a devoted device basically for safety
applications or a usual device like laptop, PDA,
mobile, etc., to use the Internet services.
2) On-board units (OBUs): The On board Unit is a
WAVE device. That is commonly mounted on
the vehicle which is used for swapping infor-
mation among RSUs and other vehicle’s OBUs.
It comprises a resource command processor, a
memory which is mainly used to store and re-
claim the information and combine to relate
other OBUs. The essential functions of OBU
are data security, reliable message transition,
congestion control, routing and many more.
3) Road side units (RSUs): The Road Side Unit
(RSU) is a device mainly alongside the road as
seen commonly at junctions or near the parking
lots. To get through within the infrastructural
network, roadside units are armed with one
network device for a DSRC. The main function
of RSU is to extend the communication range
of network by circulating the information to
other OBUs and RSUs.
Fig. (1) shows, the linking between the vehicles
and RSU that defined in the three different com-
munication domains are [3]:
1) In-vehicle domain: This particular domain sub-
sists of an On Board Unit and one or many ap-
plication units (AU). The OBU grants a com-
munication linkage to the application unit in
order to execute a set of services or applications
implemented by the RSU.
2) Ad hoc domain: This domain subsists of On
Board Units (OBUs) and Road Side Units
(RSUs) that are placed alongside the road. In
this domain basically two types of communica-
tions are available:
• Vehicle to vehicle communication through
OBUs, that grant connection between the
vehicles with fully distributed manner. Vehi-
cles are connecting with other vehicles by
constituting single hop and multi-hop com-
munication.
• Vehicle communicates with a Road Side
Unit to escalate the communication range by
send, receive as well as forward the infor-
mation from one vehicle to another vehicle.
3) Infrastructural domain: Road Side Units
(RSUs) connect with Internet, granting the On-
board Unit to access the infrastructure network.
AUs are certified with On-board unit (OBU)
that connects to any internet host.
3. VANETs CHALLENGES
VANETs Challenges are categorized based on
following Communication, Design, Security and
Routing.
3.1. Communication Challenges
These are the following challenges in vehicular
communication [8, 9]:
1) Network Scale: It is a challenge for VANET to
define scope and reach of the network, with ap-
proximately millions of vehicle. Connecting au-
thorities guiding the transportation systems and
making the layout of a facility to handover the
48 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
AU: Application Unit
OBU: On Board Unit
RSU: Road Side Unit
GW: Gateway
GW
Network
Access
Ad hoc
RSU Domain
AU
OBU
AU
OBU
Fig. (1). VANETs Communication domains.
cryptographic keys also pose a challenge for re-
searchers. The solution is to provide any securi-
ty architecture for the above.
2) Network Volatility: Connectivity among the ve-
hicles can usually be highly transient and a one-
time event. When, two vehicles or nodes are
moving on a highway may stay within their
transceiver range of each other or within a
small number of hops for a finite time period.
Hence, using password-based secure channels
for communication within this short time span
will be absurd.
3) Privacy: The Context specific information about
vehicles (like coordinates, time intervals, etc.)
can be used for unambiguous recognition of the
vehicles as sources of message. However, such
type of information requirements increases
stronger privacy concern. For example, driver’s
biometric system, which is useful to access and
control method of vehicular node, is highly con-
fidential and unique data which we can’t reset.
4) Delay aware Applications: Safety applications
correspond to strict deadline for message deliv-
ery. The security mechanisms in these applica-
tions must acquire some constraints into con-
sideration that demand small processing and
message overhead. Otherwise, the attacker can
easily disrupt the message delivery and deplete
the resources by generating the highest number
of fake messages.
Karn and Gupta
Server 1 Server 2
Internet
Hot
Spot Infrastructure
RSU
Domain
RSU
In Vehicle
Domain
AU
OBU
5) Security: Security of the message contents are
also considered as a big issue. The contents of a
received message must be verified within a
short span of time so as to use the information
as soon as possible.
6) Authentication: Vehicles should acknowledge
to events only when the message senders are
verified as legal senders. Accordingly, we need
to substantiate the senders of these messages.
7) Integrity: Integrity mainly deals with the cohe-
sion of a stream of messages. It ensures that the
messages are received in the order in which
they are sent, without any alteration, replays or
reordering.
8) Accessibility: A sturdy communication channel
can still endure some attacks which can bring
down the network. A critical feature of VANET
security is its digital signature. A variety of
techniques for QoS improvement could help to
improve accessibility.
9) Reliability: Because the brief communication
time, it is arduous to ensure that reliable mes-
sage reception as well as acknowledgement be-
tween communication vehicles are in opposite
direction. In VANET there is a bulk of periodic
broadcast messages that announce the state of a
vehicle to its neighbors. So in case of announc-
ing the messages it needs more authenticity.
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 49
3.2. Routing Challenges
Due to the nodal mobility as well as dynamic
topology, message routing is considered as a prob-
lem in a dispersed environment. Routing protocols
are basically used to discover the route or path for
transmission of specified data or data packets. It
comprises of the following challenges [6, 10]:
1) Scalability: Routing protocols infer some re-
strictions for scalability of ad hoc networks.
The features such as route acquirement, loca-
tion services are require considerable commu-
nication overhead, which will increase quickly
with increase in network size. Proactive routing
protocols are not relevant in a variable situa-
tion, because extensive quantity of broadcast
messages and change in network topology. Re-
active routing protocols can be used to deploy
the large networks at the disbursement of in-
creased route acquisition latency. Minimum
route acquisition latency is a result of maxi-
mum diameter of the network and vehicle tra-
versal time for the route demand. Likewise, it
demands for small dormancies for route acqui-
sition that limits the network size.
2) Quality of Service (QoS) with Network Scale:
QoS is demanded to meet out the rising re-
quirements of different applications of the In-
ternet. QoS is an assurance by the network to
grant certain performance criteria for a flow in
condition of quantities of bandwidth, jitter, de-
lay and packet loss probability many more fea-
tures. Channel characteristics regularly diversi-
fy unpredictably with the complexity of sharing
a communication medium with neighbors, each
with its own varying requirements. Due to the
nature of ad-hoc networks, the QoS network
scale can’t be assured for a long time cause of
abrupt variations in link quality in VANETs.
3) Security: Due to the lack of any centralized
network for managing security, vitally changing
wireless structure becomes very susceptible to
eavesdropping etc. Possibility of malicious at-
tack increases as the nodes use shared medium
in a secure environment. Security is mainly
concentrated on secure data forwarding. The
more serious difficulty considering this factor is
possible the risk of a vehicle being captured and
compromised. Another approach is to secure
routing by dividing data into N pieces that is
sent along distinguished separate routes. Later,
at the destination point reconstruct the original
message from these N pieces. Other challenging
issues in ad hoc networks are node cooperation
with the Internet, data aggregation, multicast, as
well as the theoretical circumspection of ad hoc
networks.
3.3. Security Challenges
Following challenges must be considered while
designing VANET architecture, cryptographic al-
gorithm, security protocols, etc. The security chal-
lenges are as follows [7, 11]:
1) Real Time Processing: VANET is considered to
be time critical application, where secure mes-
sages are dispatched with 100ms spreading de-
lay. Thus, to achieve real time constraint a fast
cryptographic algorithm must be used. Message
verification as well as entity authentication
must be done in a particular time. The VANET
applications are mainly used for the collision
avoidance, accident warning information,
which requires a strict deadline for message de-
livery.
2) Data Consistency: In VANET malicious activi-
ties can be performed by even authenticated
nodes, which could be reason accidents. Hence,
need to design a mechanism to avoid this irreg-
ularity. Correlation amid the received infor-
mation from different nodes might avoid this
kind of disparity.
3) Distribution of Encryption Keys: All the securi-
ty mechanisms enforced in VANET are reliant
on encryption keys in V2V and V2I communi-
cation. Every message is encrypted as well as
decrypted either with the same or different
keys. In PKI, trust on certification authority be-
comes an issue. Key distribution among vehi-
cles also a major challenge in designing a secu-
rity protocol.
4) Tradeoff between Authentication and Privacy:
Message authentication is requisite to trail the
vehicles for recognition. Therefore a system
needs to be introduced that enables the messag-
es to be unreadable to other nodes but readable
by central authorities.
5) Message Security: The message contents
should be secluded from any changes or unau-
thorized access. Reliability does not essentially
mean message sender’s recognition. The re-
50 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
ceiver of message is not only ensuring that the
sender generates this message, but it also knows
about the activeness of the senders.
6) Access Control: Some unambiguous services
are provided by RSUs or infrastructure nodes
that are determined locally by policies. As a
component of access control, authorization es-
tablishes that what permissions are allowed to
each node in VANET.
7) Jamming: An attacker easily able to separate
the whole network, without compromising
cryptographic mechanisms and through finite
transmission power.
8) Impersonation: An attacker acts as an artifice
emergency vehicle to give the wrong impres-
sion to other vehicles to slow down and give
up. An adversary can also impersonate RSUs
by spoofing service advertisements or defense
messages. So an impersonator can be a hazard.
Message fabrication, alteration, and replay can
be used as impersonation.
3.4. Design Challenges
The prevailing approaches are non-efficient and
these challenges can’t be instantly applied in
VANETs. Present design challenges for VANETs
are [12]:
1) Eminently Disparate Vehicular Networks: The
logical relation across distinct wireless net-
working automations under a time fluctuating
network topology is very convoluted in particu-
lar for quality of service, routing, node address-
ing and security. These particulars would re-
quire coexistence of numerous different wire-
less networks in order to provide universal ac-
cess to broadband services.
2) Data Administration and Depot: This approach
maps to the extensive vehicular networks that
will develop the massive amount of dispersed
data. Therefore, it must be hoarded in some par-
ticular way using lots of vehicles distributed
across the VANET. Because of this feature, the
colossal scale, the size of the network and ex-
tents of composing data poses threats to the da-
ta administration.
3) Provincial systems: Safety applications being
critical in vehicular networks. Therefore it re-
quires more and more decisions and authentic
localization systems. In VANET network we
Karn and Gupta
generally inlay a GPS receiver in each and eve-
ry vehicle. But GPS which comes under satel-
lite based positioning scheme present a few un-
desired complications such as unavailability.
Therefore, various provincial approaches have
been suggested for figuring out the spots of ve-
hicles; especially map matching is a differential
GPS technique, cellular localization and an
analogous distributed ad hoc localization. A
single approach taken can’t appease all the ne-
cessities of critical operations concurrently,
such as checking the availability at any specific
location on particular time, with immensely ac-
curate and predictable position computation.
4) Frequent link disconnections: The highly am-
bulatory vehicles ordinarily travel at immense
speed, exclusively on highways (i.e., over 100
km/hr).Due to that frequent disconnected com-
munication links has been established between
a source and a destination.
5) Geographical dispatching of object: The sub-
stantial area of a vehicle is important for many
operations to achieve data communication that
needs a geographical dispatch.
6) Collaboration with new Networks: The com-
munity considering VANET is anticipated to
collaborate with new people, operations and
services in different networks like the sensor
networks, internet, local area networks and
wide area networks. This collaboration can be
convenient to grant a better service to the user,
like information about the traffic settings,
weather, as well as the routes.
7) Variable Network Density: VANET topology in
urban schemes can have thousands of vehicles
in a comparatively small region. It is important
to plot the protocols in order to avert collision
and communication faults. Nevertheless, in
highway scheme the topology is inadequate and
the more relatedness or less intermittent. This
scheme proposes the necessity of protocols
cognizant of these separations. Also, the vehi-
cles which transits in both schemes need to ac-
custom their demeanor to these network mass
fluctuations in order to provide a better data re-
location.
8) Network Management: Due to the highly mo-
bile and constantly changing network topology,
we cannot value the network structures like tree
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 51
structure, because these designs cannot be ar-
ranged and checked like constantly as the net-
work topology changed.
4. SECURITY ISSUES AND ATTACKS IN
VANETs
The communication packets encompass life
critical information and so it is compulsory to en-
sure that these packets are not altered or created by
the attackers and the same packet is delivered
within the time. So, security in VANETs should
satisfy four specific goals such as message integri-
ty, information authenticity, source authentication
and privacy [13].
4.1. Types of Attackers
The attacker tends to generate troubles or diffi-
culty for other users of the network. Attackers are
categorizing according to the scope, nature, and
behavior of attacks. They are classified as follows
[14, 15, 16]:
1) Insiders Vs Outsiders: The insider nodes can
communicate with other nodes and can attack in
distinct ways while outsider nodes have a finite
capacity to perform an attack. Insider attackers
can create problem by changing certificate
keys. In other words, insider attacker is a right
man doing a wrong job.
2) Rational Vs Malicious: Malicious attackers use
distinct methods in order to damage the net-
work without any personal benefit. While in the
case of rational attackers they follow some pat-
tern with expect some personal benefit from the
attack.
3) Active Vs Passive: Basically, Active attackers
are able to generate new packets to attack
VANETs whereas passive attacker eavesdrop
the wireless channel but they can’t generate
new packets. Passive attackers are less harmful
than Active attackers.
To achieve their goals, attackers exploit man-
power, tools and budget that are the three main
key resources for attacking. A proper budget is
required to borrow technical expertise as well as
tools for launching the attacks.
4.2. Classification of Attacks
VANETs are prone to distinct types of threats
and attacks. To keep VANETs secure from at-
tacks, they must possess the following attributes
[17], as shown in Fig. (2) and gave little descrip-
tion in Table 1.
1) Confidentiality: Confidentiality implies an as-
surance that data will not be disclosed to unau-
thorized receivers. It can be achieved by using a
cryptographic technique.
2) Data integrity: The integrity of exchanged data
ensures that the data has not been modified in
transit.
3) Authentication: It is the process of establishing
vehicle’s identity prior to ceding access to the
network.
4) Availability: Availability certifies the network
to be functional and that appropriate infor-
mation is available at any time.
5) Access Control: According to the permission
granted to users, vehicles can access specific
type of resource in VANETS.
5. SYBIL ATTACK IN VANETs
Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are be-
ing increasingly advocated for traffic control, ac-
cident avoidance, and management of parking lots
and public areas. Security and privacy are two ma-
jor concerns in VANETs. Unfortunately, in
VANETs, most privacy-preserving schemes are
vulnerable to Sybil attack.
5.1. Sybil Attack
Use of wireless medium for communication has
left these networks vulnerable to Sybil attack. A
Sybil Attack is caused in VANET when a mali-
cious vehicle or RSU is able to acquire multiple
identities. A Sybil attacker sends numerous mes-
sages with a distinct false identity to other vehicles
in queue. It creates an illusion or confusion among
another vehicle in the same track. There are basi-
cally two types of nodes [18]; (a) Malicious node:
Nodes that prank other node identities and (b)
Sybil node: Additional identities created by the
malicious node to attack are known as Sybil nodes.
Sybil node identities are of two types: actually ex-
isting node (S  N) and outside the network node
(S
N) , where N represents a set of all vehicles and
S is the collection of Sybil nodes [19]. As the mes-
sages are broadcast over the shared wireless com-
munication medium, consequently a Sybil Attack-
er can easily fabricate or stolen additional identi-
ties to launch the Attack.
52 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 Karn and Gupta

Table 1. Classification of Security Attacks in VANETs.

1. Sybil Attack: In Sybil Attack, A malicious vehicle transmits the various messages with multiple fake or stolen
source identity to other vehicles in the network. When malicious vehicle send some wrong messages (like more traf-
fic, Accident Ahead messages, etc.) to generates illusion for a different motor vehicle. Attacker constitutes numerous
Authentication

vehicles with the some identity to force other vehicles to make way for attacker and leave the road.
2. Node Impersonation Attack: All the vehicles in vehicular networks have exclusive recognition. It becomes neces-
sary when an accident happens. In node impersonation attack, an attacker or malicious vehicle can change his id and
acts as a real message originator. Attacker can change or modify contents of the message for his benefits. Shown in
Fig. (3).
3. Key or Certificate Replication attack: The attack consist use of duplicate keys or certificates which can be used as
proof of identification and to create ambiguity and making it more difficult to identify a vehicle.
1. Denial of service (DoS) attack: Major purpose behind a DOS attack is to prevent legitimate users from accessing
the network services and resources. In same way, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack works where attacker
uses different locations for launch the DoS attack. Attackers can use dissimilar time slots to launching attack.
2. Black Hole: In black hole attack, vehicle refuses to participate in network or a traditional vehicle connection drops
out to form a black hole. This attack makes all the data and control packets to redirect to a specified vehicle which
Availability

do not exist or is not identifiable.

3. Malware Attacks: Malware attacks are just similar to viruses in VANET which hampers the normal procedure of
the network. VANET may get infected by malware attacks when there is any software update into the VANET com-
ponents or RSUs. The effect of a malware is similar to the effect of viruses and worms in an ordinary computer net-
work.
4. Spamming attack: As in a web environment, the spam messages such as advertisements have no utility for users.
In a VANET, this type of attack aims to consume bandwidth.
1. ID Disclosure: This is a passive attack, in which the attacker send malicious program code to the target node’s
neighbors and collects required data. They seize Identity and location information of the target node. With this iden-
Access Control

tity of target vehicle’s gets disclosed and they lose privacy of them. In this, global observer can access their data by
monitoring the route of the target vehicle. For this purpose attacker can use the RSU (Road Side Unit). E.g. payment
companies utilize this approach to maintain track of their motor vehicle movement.
2. Timing attack: It involves delaying the transmission of messages with high constraints on propagation delay, and
transmitting them after some time thereby preventing their treatment in a normal way.
1. Eavesdropping Attack: It is the most important attack over the VANET network against confidentiality. To per-
form this attack, attackers can be a vehicle or a false RSU. They show that they are the part of the network but their
goal is to illegally get access to confidential data.
2. Man in the Middle Attack: In the MIMA attack, attackers control all communication between dispatcher and re-
cipient, but they assume that, they are directly communicating with each other. Attacker listens in communication
Confidentiality

between legal vehicles and inject fake or modified message between communicating vehicles.
3. Home Attack: In Home Attack, attacker seize control of the legitimate vehicle (software, sensor, hardware) by
using the help of internet to generate some wrong message, change sensor behavior, increase or decrease the vehicle
speed.
4. Social Attack: The basic idea of this attack is to create confusion by sending unethical and unmoral message
hence, the driver gets disturbed. It affects the driving of motor vehicle which indirectly creates trouble for VANET.
Fig. (4) is shown that the Attacker send message “You are an Idiot” to nearby vehicles. When the vehicle receives
this message it may distress his driving (he may increase speed or rash drive etc) indirectly disrupting the normal
network and VANET scenario.
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 53

(Table 1) contd….

1. Bogus Information: In this attack, the insider or legitimate user broadcast fake information on the network to have
an effect on the decisions of other vehicles in network.
2. Non-repudiation: It is the verification that data was sent with vehicle credentials so that without any denial data
can be associated with sender’s vehicles. It aims to avoid one entity to deny having done some action. It ensures that
a driver cannot deny having done an action.
Data integrity

3. Masquerading attack: In this attack, the attacker is hidden using a valid identity (called a mask), and produce false
messages that appear to be originating from an authentic node. For example, A malicious node attempts to act as an
emergency vehicle and cheat other vehicles.
4. Replay attack: It consists in replaying (broadcast) a message already sent to take the benefit of the message at the
moment of its submission. Therefore, the attacker injects it again in the network packets previously received. Replay
attack is generally performed by non-legitimate users.
5. Message Fabrication/Alteration: As its name implies, this attack harms the integrity of the message. It consists of
modifying, deleting, constructing or altering existing data in message. The attacker can also delete a part of the mes-
sage which helps him achieving its intended purpose.

VANET Attacks on

Authentication Availability Access Control Confidentiality Data Integrity

¾Sybil Attack ¾DoS Attack ¾ID Disclosure ¾Eavesdropping ¾Bogus Information

¾Node ¾Black Hole ¾Timing Attack ¾Man in Middle ¾Non-Repudiation
Impersonation Attack Attack ¾Masquerading
¾Key Certificate ¾Malware Attack ¾Home Attack ¾Reply Attack
¾Replication ¾Spamming Attack ¾Social Attack ¾Message Fabrication
/ Alteration

Fig. (2). Classification of Security Attacks.

Accident at
Don’t Know Location Z
About Accident

A A

Fig. (3). Node Impersonation Attack.

You are
an Idiot

Attacker

Fig. (4). Social Attack.

54 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
Traffic
Sybil Node 1
Attacker
Sybil Attacker
Fig. (5). The victim node thinks that more than one vehicle is sending the event messages whenever the fake traffic
messages are sent by Sybil attacker with fake nodes (sybil1 and Sybil2).
In Fig. (5), initially the accident warning mes-
sage is observed by victim vehicle that is sent by a
participant vehicle. The Victim’s vehicle does not
worry because the reason is that the observed mes-
sage is arriving from a participant vehicle. How-
ever, when more than one vehicle report same
emergency or disaster event, afterward the first
victim node transmits message to the entire other
vehicles in the network. When receivers receive
the event message, then it may forward this mes-
sage to notify the other vehicles. This may be cre-
ating hazards for passenger’s life. These fake iden-
tities are used to create illusions by Sybil Attacker.
When the Sybil Attackers are increase in the net-
work, then they are able to gain control of the
whole network. A Sybil Attacker can create a
number of Sybil Nodes (May possibly from one to
total vehicles in the network) that depends on
memory storage, message sending and computa-
tion resources of the attacker.
5.2. Effect of Sybil Attack
Sybil node may affect on some network ser-
vices such as routing, network congestion, re-
source allocation, decision making. These may de-
crease performance and service Excellency of the
networks.
Some protocols and applications that can be af-
fected by the Sybil Attack in VANETs as follows
[15, 20]:
1) To disturb the route generation in multipath or
geographic routing algorithms, by appearing at
the various places in generating routes. Also, in
cluster- based routing protocols, Sybil attacker
Karn and Gupta
Internet
RSU
Victim Node
Sybil Node 2
is also able to disturb the head selection mecha-
nism.
2) Voting system is very helpful for gathering and
verifying some valuable information for various
applications. Sybil nodes can change voting re-
sults at the time of reporting and identifying
misbehavior of the node and position verifica-
tion of vehicles.
3) Provocation of malicious behavior with spread-
ing actions, the attacker executes over the fake
identities.
4) Internet polls can be controlled by this attack by
using multiple identities (IPs) and the result can
be made in their favor.
5) Sybil node affects the resource allocation due to
multiple identities. It can obtain an unfair share
of resources.
6) Sybil attacks can also decrease the trust of legit-
imate node.
5.3. Sybil Attack Detection Approaches
The main purpose behind the ‘Sybil Attack’
Detection is to make sure that each physical node
is bound with a valid unique identity. There are
some approaches for Sybil Attack detection with
their limitations as follows:
Chen et al. [21] proposed a ‘Robust Sybil At-
tack Detection’ approach based on motion trajec-
tories differences of vehicles. The author has as-
sumed that people driving vehicles on their indi-
vidual path, chosen speed, and maintains some dis-
tance from other vehicular nodes for traffic or pas-
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 55

senger safety. Therefore, each vehicle can detect Drawbacks: In this approach the privacy of
attacks independently with little support from nodes is not preserved. Vehicles are able to create
RSUs. In this approach, RSUs are made available a new trajectory using a new public key; this free-
vehicle’s digital signatures along with timestamp dom can be misused by malicious vehicle by gen-
periodically or on-demand. Each motor vehicle is erating multiple trajectories.
able to independently record these signatures and
utilize them during the measure and compare the In [22], Park et al. proposes an approach with
differences from neighboring node’s signature roadside unit support based on ‘timestamp series’.
vectors to detect Sybil nodes as given in Table 2. This method does not make use of VPKI (Vehicu-
lar Public Key Infrastructure) and RSUs with in-
In this technique the digital signatures along ternet accessibility. This makes it a suitable inex-
with timestamp are broadcast by using infrastruc- pensive solution for VANET. RSUs are not re-
ture only. Therefore, this is a very effective, robust sponsible for managing vehicle's public keys,
and distinct approach with high detection rate and RSUs are only issue timestamps. These
minimum system requirements. While the motor timestamps are digitally signed by each RSU that
vehicle comes into the RSUs range, vehicle re- can increase message size. So, that is minimized
quests for authorized messages from RSU. This by using an aggregated timestamp. Vehicle gener-
authorized message from RSU to a vehicle is a ates a timestamp request which needs to be veri-
proof that this particular vehicle is present at that fied by RSU for certificate correctness. If invalid,
particular time in its range. Authorized messages RSU will not give a response. Otherwise, RSU
can be used to identify a vehicle as message would extracts previous timestamp information and com-
be different at different location. When a vehicle bine it with current timestamp to generate a new
travels through road it collects all the authorized aggregate timestamp.
the messages to form a trajectory using a public
key. Basically, in this approach as mentioned in Fig.
(6), when a vehicle passes through a RSU it ac-
quires certified timestamp that is signed by the
Table 2. Authorized RSU’s Signatures gathered by RSU. A motor vehicle sent a traffic message,
vehicles. which contains a timestamp series to confirm that
when a vehicle passes through the last few RSUs.
Vehicle Vehicle Vehicle Vehicle It is unusual to have two vehicles passing through
Time multiple RSUs at the similar time, because each
P Q R R’
vehicles moves with different dynamics. Based on
T0 RSU 3 RSU 2 RSU 1 RSU 1 this fact, when a receiver vehicle receives numer-
ous messages with same timestamp series can be
T1 RSU 4 RSU 5 RSU 4 RSU 4
detected as Sybil Attack.
T2 None RSU 3 RSU 2 RSU 2
T3 RSU 1 None RSU 5 RSU 5

A vehicular node can detect existing Sybil

nodes by executing number of steps as follows.
Firstly gather information for e.g. Vehicle V asks
k-dimension signature vectors of all neighboring
nodes that are currently active. Then, it computes
the difference between the values of neighboring Fig. (6). Timestamp series approach.
nodes. Second is Judging: It is an analysis process
based on statistics to judge difference among the Drawbacks: An Attacker may use the complex
signature vectors. If all vectors are normal, then no roadways in urban scenario to introduce a Sybil
Sybil Attack, otherwise a possible attack (Sybil attack. As shown in Fig. (7), vehicle V attempts to
attack) exists; and last is Classification, A mali- create two separate timestamp requests to R3 with
cious node can generate more Sybil node; these the timestamps obtained from R1 and R2 RSUs.
Sybil nodes are included in a Sybil set. Vehicle V uses these two separate timestamps to
56 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
send two Sybil messages. In this approach a single
vehicle cannot prevent to acquire multiple
timestamps from an RSU. If RSUs are located near
intersections, then an Attacker stops his vehicle
near RSU and collects multiple timestamps with
extended time variation. Due to different values of
timestamps vehicle V is able to send Sybil mes-
sages.
RSU 1 RSU 3
RSU 2
Fig. (7). Vehicle V can obtain two dissimilar certifi-
cates from RSU3 by using certificate of RSU1 and
RSU2.
Hao et al. [23] proposed a cooperative position
based protocol for highway scenario. The vehicles
are detected and quarantine ‘Sybil attacks’ locally
based on vehicle’s geographic position. Short
group signature protocols are used to provide pri-
vacy for vehicles. The ‘(t,n) threshold’ signature
protocol used to identify the attack.
There are three phases named as probing, con-
firmation and quarantine. In probing, Vehicles pe-
riodically transmitting own geographic infor-
mation with the indexes of behind M vehicles and
front M vehicles of the vehicle. Second is Confir-
mation, assume that vehicles at the suspect side as
S-vehicles and O-vehicles are opposite side vehi-
cles for convenience. When any vehicle observed
an anomaly then notify to other vehicles with sig-
nificantly suspected vehicle’s index by using par-
tial private key and afterward transmit warning
message. When anomaly is observed in probing,
then vehicles are cooperatively confirming attacks
possibility. If the vehicles are more than threshold
value that are believed in existing of attack, then
suspect vehicle will be quarantined.
Drawbacks: This protocol is not suitable to de-
tect multiple Sybil nodes. It can detect only a sin-
gle Sybil node. This scheme Works only for high-
way scenario, not for urban. When O-vehicles in-
volve in confirmation procedure, then it create
more communication overhead and consume time.
Karn and Gupta
Tong et al. [24] proposed a privacy preserved
solution “P2DAP” (Privacy-preserved Detection
Abuse of Pseudonyms) to detect Sybil attacks. In
this scheme, authors assume Department of motor
vehicle (DMV) as a trusted entity, road side unit
(RSU) as a semi trusted entity while vehicles are
considered non-trusted. DMV maintains vehicle
records and issue pseudonyms to the vehicles for
preserve the Privacy. These pseudonyms are also
used by vehicular nodes to communicate in a se-
cure manner.
In “P2DAP” approach both RSU and DMV are
able to verify whether pseudonyms belong to simi-
lar pool or not. In pseudonyms generation process
DMV hashes each pseudonym by public key and
private key to find hash results as ‘coarse grained
hash’ and ‘fine grained hash’. Some pseudonyms
with a fine grain hash are belonging to a specific
coarse grained group. All of the pseudonyms in
each subgroup are allocated to a vehicle. At the
yearly vehicle’s registration time a distinctive
‘pseudonyms subgroup of fine grained’ assigned
to each vehicle by the DMV. At the first, RSUs
overhear message communication. After that, they
sign a specific event by inserting pseudonyms and
their calculated coarse grained hash values into a
list. Different pseudonyms with same coarse
grained hash values are marked as suspicious.
RSU send these suspicious pseudonyms to the
DMV for generating fined grained hash values.
The attack is unavoidable if these fine grained
hash values are same. As only DMV knows the
fine grained hash key values, the attacker reveals
only the coarse grained hash key values from a
compromised RSU. In this method, RSUs reduces
communication overhead by executing many
DMV tasks.
Drawbacks: This Approach is not designed for
large, heavy network traffic. DMV becomes a bot-
tleneck because of Excessive communication in
the network. Initial infrastructure for vehicles reg-
istration and detecting Sybil attack make it com-
plicated to use this technique, especially when mo-
tor vehicle are traveling between different coun-
tries with different VANET standards.
In [25] Triki et al. propose a RFID (Referance
Identity) based solution to detect and prevent Sybil
attacks in VANETs. In this approach, attacker is
identified with the following two steps. Firstly
RFID tags are used by vehicles for authentication
to RSU and obtain a short lifetime certificate from
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 57
RSU. Then these certificates are used for authenti-
cate to the other vehicles. In this approach, a net-
work is split up into multiple zones. Each zone
consists of several RSUs and a zone controller
(called Road Side Controller (RSC)) is selected
from them. A certification authority (CA) is con-
nected to each RSC of a zone. The RSC is elected
based on criteria such as middlemost RSU, most
visited RSU or least overloaded RSU. A set of ob-
servers is integrated with the vehicles, RSUs, and
RSCs. They are in charge of collecting, exchang-
ing, and analyzing the history of data related to
sensitive events.
This algorithm follows a fourfold approach.
First, it uses RFID tags in vehicles containing Ve-
hicle Identification Number (VIN). Authentica-
tions of vehicles are done by RSUs and RSCs
when they pass the zone. Vehicle’s privacy is pre-
served during authentication, as the VIN is never
transmitted within the vehicular network. Second,
it prevents vehicle tracking by attackers because
vehicles identities get changed as they request new
certificate from RSUs whenever they enter in the
new zone. Third, by distributing detection mecha-
nisms among RSUs and vehicles observers, it re-
duces the overhead in RSCs. Fourth; attacker’s
identification is instant, which allows immediate
response to detect Sybil attack. For avoiding false
positives, RSU checks whether a vehicle gets an-
other certificate in the current zone with the help
of alert received from neighbor RSC and RSU. If
attack detected, the RSU confirms and broadcast
an alert of a Sybil attack to all other RSUs in the
zone.
Drawbacks: The mechanism of new Certificate
generation, updating of certificate revocation lists
(CRL) and communication with RSC generates
more workload on network entities. RSC failure
may lead to failure of the whole network.
In [26] Gill et al. propose, as an extension of
the Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector (AODV)
Routing protocol. AODV is a multi-hop reactive
routing protocol, which purely works on demand
basis.
To detect the Sybil attack a new filed is intro-
duced in AODV named as SCID (Secondary iden-
tity). It maintains a UID (unique identity) of each
vehicle. In AODV data packet, SCID and se-
quence number is used to detect the Sybil attack. It
is nearly impossible for any attacker to have same
sequence number and SCIDs. If an attack is de-
tected then AODV select alternate path to transfer
the data. This approach improves the performance
of the network in terms of the packet delivery ra-
tio, routing overhead and end to end delay. In
AODV protocols, there is a very less delay in the
route discovery because the path is mostly availa-
ble when source need to send a packet, so it shows
better performance when compared with other ap-
proaches.
In [27] Shone et al. proposed a scheme that us-
es an encryption method to detect Sybil attack and
provides four safety aspects viz. Authentication,
privacy, Data Integrity and Non-repudiation. In
this scheme a whole country or city is divided into
different regions. In each region two keys (public-
key and authentication key) are needed for com-
munication.
This scheme assumes that each CA (certifica-
tion Authority) manages its own local public key
legitimate in its area and CA is a trusted entity that
holds initial information & certification of vehi-
cles. Each vehicle must be registered in a region
and collect region’s public authentication key
(PUAK) before transmitting any messages. For
signing a message, vehicles use its own private
key & encryption function and send it to another
vehicle and RSU. Then receivers are also can vali-
date the transmitted data integrity by computing
the Hash value. In the same way, CA can detect
the Sybil attack. However, the secret key of CA is
not available at RSU, thus RSUs cannot decrypt
the messages.
Drawbacks: Most of the computations are done
by a Certification Authority (CA), hence this
method require more computation resources at
Certification Authority. One of the problems in
this proposed scheme is that, if vehicles move to
other regions, detection of Sybil attack not possi-
ble.
Prakash et al. [28] proposed an improved ses-
sion key method to dynamically generate local cer-
tificates for the vehicles to communicate within
the range of the RSU. In this scheme, session key
is used to detect the vehicles ID, so that they can
be tracked easily and attack could be avoided.
This method utilizes each vehicle’s unique
identity (UID), session expiration time (T), and
three keys viz. Master Key, private key & public
58 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
key for security. The procedure of local certificate
generation is as follows. Firstly in the authentica-
tion process, each vehicle’s UID and Master Key
are registered in main server, which generates a
commitment identity (CID) by using a hash func-
tion and send it to local RSUs. Local RSU will
validate vehicle’s CID in main server. If the CID
is not registered in main server, then access is de-
nied. Afterward, local RSU will generate a session
key by using the ECC algorithm and local certifi-
cate for the vehicle and then store in database.
This local certificate is later sent to the vehicle, as
its legal proof through which any other vehicle can
validate for some fixed time duration (T). If any-
how, it is found that the vehicle certificate is mis-
matched with that possessed by RSU then it is as-
sumed that a Sybil node has performed using false
identity.
Drawbacks: CIDs sent by vehicle in each mes-
sage can be exploited by malicious vehicles for
message broadcasting.
The Sybil attack detection is very difficult in
city environment because of location privacy of
vehicles and short transmissions among the vehi-
cles due to high mobility. Bandil et al. [29] pro-
posed ‘Location Hidden Authorized Message
Generation’ Scheme, which is a threshold Elgamal
based key management strategy for security
against compromised RSU. RSU signature on
message are unknown to signer due to the position
information of the RSU is unknown to resulted
authorized message. We can identify a vehicle by
observing that if two authorized messages are
signed in the given time period by same RSU. CA
contains all the secrets and has liabilities to solve
disputation and recovery at the highest protection
level. RSUs are used to share out a key and storage
space for vehicle data. If RSU is compromised in
VANETs then the data cannot be transformed suc-
cessfully. This scheme is used for safeguarding
VANETs from the compromised RSUs and their
collusion with the malicious vehicle. Signer-
Ambiguous Signature Schemes are used to reduce
the communication and computation overhead for
signature verification. In ElGamal system-based
key management plan, we cannot find the original
plaintext with the help of RSUs.
Drawbacks: In this scenario, if private key is
compromised then whole network become com-
promised. In Elgamel scheme more computation
required to encrypt and decrypt the messages.
Karn and Gupta
In [30] Sakthivel et al. suggest a ‘Self Orga-
nized public key management System’ to allow
users to generate a key pair (public and private).
This key pair is used for issue certificates and to
perform authentication on the network without any
central authority.
In this system vehicular nodes are adapted to
perform some actions in a self organized way to
discover and remove Sybil trajectory, to preserve
location privacy of nodes and to fast detect RSUs
failure. During Computational process, Euler’s
totient function and Euclidean Algorithm are used
to generate public and private key pair. A message
verification process carried out by checking Vehi-
cle ID, Public key of the vehicle, RSU’s private
key, analyzing the entry time and by verifying the
partial signature on the message to be signed by a
legitimate previous RSU.
Drawbacks: This scheme is inefficient because
every time when we need to identify a vehicle, all
messages in the sequence need to be verified. If an
RSU is compromised, the attacker can generate
fake legal trajectories.
In [31] Garg et al. proposed an Enhanced
Lightweight Sybil Attack Detection Technique
which requires no extra hardware or antennae.
This approach includes detection based on four
parameters, i.e. speed, energy, frequency and la-
tency and their threshold values which are either
predefined or average of them in network. The
nodes whose speed, energy, frequency and laten-
cy value is less than their corresponding threshold
values are identified as legitimate nodes. In this
approach, initial network is set up by initializing
threshold values of network parameters. When a
new/unknown node enters into network and its
address has not been known by network before,
all its parameters are checked i.e. Speed, energy,
frequency and latency. If all parameter’s values
are greater or equal to their corresponding thresh-
old values, then new node is detected as Sybil
node otherwise as legitimate node. If an address
of this node matches the address of any node pre-
sent in the network, then both are suspected as
Sybil node. Then the values of parameters are
checked for both suspected nodes. To be a legiti-
mate node, parameters values are less than their
corresponding threshold values, otherwise detect-
ed as Sybil node.
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1 59

Table 3. Comparisons among Sybil Attack Detection Techniques in VANETs.

Centralize/ De- Privacy Certification RSS Location Support

S. N. Authors Based on
centralized Preserved Authority Used Based Based of RSU

Motion
Chen et al.
1 trajectories of Decentralized No No No Yes Yes
[21] (2009)
vehicles
Park et al. Time Stamp
2 Decentralized Yes No Yes Yes Yes
[22] (2009) series
cooperative posi-
Hao et al.
3 tion based proto- Centralized Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
[23] (2011)
col
Tong Zhou DMV (Depart- Centralized
4 et al. [24] ment of Motor (DMV is central- Yes Yes No No Yes
(2011) Vehicle) ized authority)
Centralized (A
Triki et al. RFID CA which con-
5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
[25] (2013) (Reference ID) nected with each
RSC)
Gill et al.
6 AODV Decentralized No No Yes Yes No
[26] (2013)
Centralized (Cer-
Shona et al. Encryption
7 tificate Authori- Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
[27] (2014) mechanism
ty)
improved session
prakash et key method that
8 al. [28] generates local Centralized Yes Yes No Yes Yes
(2014) certificates dy-
namically
Bandil et al. ElGamel key
9 Centralized Yes Yes No Yes Yes
[29] (2015) management
sakthivel et self organized
10 al. [30] public key man- Decentralized Yes No Yes Yes Yes
(2014) agement system
Enhanced Light
Garg et al.
11 weighted Tech- Decentralized Yes No Yes Yes Yes
[31] (2014)
nique
M. Hasan Pseudonyms
12 et al. [32] generation with Centralized Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
(2015) Road segments

Drawbacks: In this approach the parameters re- Hasan et al. [32] proposed a model for efficient
stricted to a threshold value, which may or may and effective working of VANET by considering
not be a perfect threshold. The malicious node can some assumptions for vehicles, RSUs, Certificate
also remain within these threshold values. Authority and position sensors. In this model roads
60 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
are divided into segments where each segment is a
part of straight road without diversion or intersec-
tion. Vehicles get registered with the particular
RSUs of the road segment and in return get a
pseudonym. In this approach two types of RSUs
are considered, one for normal communication and
other to generate new pseudonyms with authenti-
cation services. Some position sensors are also de-
ployed to assist the vehicle movement. When a
vehicle enters the new road segment, then RSU
verifies vehicle ID and coordinates using sensors
to issue a unique pseudonym and key pair to the
vehicle. RSUs store these details in table form and
distribute to other RSUs. When a vehicle leaves
the road segment, RSUs are informed to revoke or
terminate particular pseudonyms entries so that the
stolen pseudonyms become useless.
Drawbacks: The attacker can change the sensor
values to perform certain attacks on the system. In
city environment RSUs have to deal with multiple
requests made by a single vehicle in short time du-
ration.
6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
VANETs have been designed to provide road
safety and services for passenger comfort. There-
fore, securing VANETs pose a great challenge.
After reviewing the various recent aspects of
VANETs, we identify all existing security attack
in VANETs and classify them from a cryptograph-
ic point of view.
Security is a major challenge in implementation
of VANETs. In this survey article, we have pre-
sented security measures to be taken before im-
plementing a VANET. The major issues in
VANETs are privacy and authentication. The ad-
vance developments, wireless communication and
life safety point towards the need of security in
VANETs. In VANET many attacks are possible
and can cause serious damage to life. One such
attack is Sybil attack. Sybil attacks have been re-
garded as a serious security threat to ad hoc net-
works and sensor networks. It may also damage
the potential applications of VANET by creating a
deception of traffic congestion. A Sybil attacker
forges many fake identities (either present in the
network or not), to disturb the appropriate func-
tioning of VANETs applications. It creates an illu-
sion on the road, leading to disruption inside the
network scenario. In this survey Sybil attack is
discussed in detail and various detection schemes
Karn and Gupta
which have been proposed in previous studies are
also mentioned. According to the study, these
schemes have some pros and cons to implement.
Therefore, to maintain a secure vehicular net-
work it requires new secure Sybil Attack detection
methods which include confidentiality and authen-
ticity. Authentication methods are simple and use-
ful for authenticity, privacy and check the message
integrity. There are no proper methods for realistic
implementation in an urban scenario.
Mostly approaches are able to detect a Sybil at-
tack, but they are applied to limited vehicular
nodes. As we increase number of vehicular nodes
it may result in more delay which increase the bot-
tleneck in network communication. These ap-
proaches have some shortcomings. A comparison
between these Approaches is mentioned in
Table 3. It is impossible to decide a distinctive
mechanism or procedure. Superior method extrac-
tion for detecting the Sybil attack depends on the
allocation cost, road structural design and total ve-
hicular node in the network. There are some crite-
ria for the selection of best method.
a) It ensures the detection of a large number of
Sybil nodes to protect from network damage.
b) It takes the minimum time to discover and re-
move Sybil Nodes,
c) It must preserve the privacy of vehicles’ driver,
d) Must not require costly hardwares,
e) It does not increase the message communica-
tion in the VANETs.
The location verification methods are easy and
have a fewer computational complexity than the
authentication methods, which are distributed in
processing. These are positive features for network
implementation. But they are violating driver’s
privacy and expose location and information of
vehicle id, etc. In these methods the distributed
processing about vehicles also increases message
overhead. Authentication methods require an in-
frastructure for certificate revocation, distribution
of encryption keys, group communication and so
on. In these Approaches privacy preserving and
higher correctness are positive features while they
are complex for implementation and usually have
minimum scalability than location verification
based methods.
A Survey on VANETs Security International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 1
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors confirm that this article content has
no conflict of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Declared none.
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Received: June 17, 2015 Revised: October 03, 2015 Accepted: October 03, 2015