A Comprehensive Survey on Authentication and Attack Detection Schemes That Threaten It in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

As Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) bring fantastic revolution to intelligent transportation systems, their own security has become an important research topic. However, authentication security, as the key issue of VANETs’ security, is still facing great challenges. Therefore, this survey first starts with the background of VANETs and then introduces the main security concerns. To distinguish from existing surveys, this paper proposes the security challenges and security properties of VANETs from the perspective of builders and attackers, respectively. Then, we present the necessary and important characteristics of a VANET’s security system including the authenticity of nodes and information, the availability of network systems, the integrity and confidentiality of information, and the non-repudiation of information after transmission. Specifically, attack methods and detection schemes for these characteristics are highlighted in detail and analyzed in terms of their advantages and limitations, which fill the gaps in the existing survey. More importantly, we focus on the authentication schemes proposed in recent years, reporting the latest advances in VANETs. These schemes are analyzed and compared in depth in terms of the security characteristics and attack resistance of authentication, as well as in terms of overhead and efficiency. Finally, this paper summarizes some lessons and discusses several future research directions.