Complementing Public Key Infrastructure to Secure Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Vehicular ad hoc networks are emerging as an effective technology for providing a wide range of safety applications to by-vehicle passengers. Ensuring secure operation is one of the prerequisites for deploying reliable VANETs. In this paper, the authors argue that public key infrastructure is the most viable mechanism for securing VANETs as it can meet most VANET security requirements. However, PKI cannot provide certain security requirements such as location privacy, efficient authentication, and distributed and fair revocation. To complement the security services provided by PKI, they introduce complementary security mechanisms that can meet the aforementioned security requirements.