Recent advances in cryptographic solutions for vehicular networks

As vehicles become increasingly intelligent, it is expected that in the near future they will be equipped with radio interfaces. This will enable the formation of vehicular networks, commonly referred to as VANETs, an instance of mobile ad hoc networks with cars as the mobile nodes. As VANETs exhibit several unique features (e.g. high mobility of nodes, geographic extension) traditional security mechanisms are not always applicable. Consequently, a plethora of research contributions have been presented to cope with the intrinsic characteristics of vehicular communication. This paper outlines the communication architecture of VANETs and discusses the security and privacy challenges that need to be overcome to make such networks practically viable. It compares the various cryptographic schemes that were suggested for VANETs and explores some future trends that will shape the research in cryptographic protocols for intelligent transportation systems.