Dynamic Attribute Based Vehicle Authentication

In the near future, vehicles will establish a spontaneous connection over a wireless radio channel, coordinating actions and information. Security infrastructure is most important in such a hazardous scope of vehicles communication for coordinating actions and avoiding accidents on the roads. One of the first security issues that need to be established is authentication. Vehicle authentication with visual binding prior to establishing a wireless radio channel of communication is useful only when the vehicles possess unique visual attributes. These vehicle static attributes (e.g., Licence number, brand and color) are certified together with the vehicle public key. Therefore, we consider the case of multiple malicious vehicles with identical visual static attributes. Apparently, dynamic attributes (e.g., Location and direction) can uniquely define a vehicle and can be utilized to resolve the true identity of vehicles. However, unlike static attributes, dynamic attributes cannot be signed by a trusted authority beforehand. We propose an approach to verify the coupling between non-certified dynamic attributes and certified static attributes on an auxiliary communication channel, for example, a modulated laser beam. Furthermore, we illustrate that the proposed approach can be used to facilitate the usage of existing authentication protocols such as NAXOS, in the new scope of ad-hoc vehicle networks.