Enhancing vehicular ad hoc network security through a trust based vehicular model for attack mitigation

Abstract

In vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs), ensuring secure and reliable communication is essential due to the growing threat of cyber-attacks. As attacks can disrupt data transmission and compromise user privacy and network integrity, it is vital to develop robust security solutions. Hence, this work introduces a trust-based vehicular security (TVS) model, which leverages trust metrics to enhance VANET security. The main objective was to establish secure connections between vehicles and infrastructure nodes, effectively mitigating attacks while maintaining higher throughput. The methodology integrated a dynamic trust evaluation model to prevent malicious activities and ensure secure data transmission. The TVS model’s performance was compared to an existing VANET model, showing improved results in terms of detection rate, misclassification rate, and throughput. The findings demonstrate an average misclassification rate of 22.75%, a detection rate of 14.77%, and a throughput of 11.45%, highlighting the superior effectiveness of the TVS model in attack-prone environments when compared with existing VANET models. The TVS model provides a promising security solution for VANETs, offering enhanced protection against denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and spoofing (cyber-attacks) with better accuracy and network performance. The novelty lies in the dynamic, multi-trust-based approach for secure communication in vehicular networks.