A survey on distributed approaches for security enhancement in vehicular ad-hoc networks

Abstract

Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) providing connectivity between vehicles and between vehicles and the infrastructure are a key component of the intelligent transportation systems framework. The security of VANETs against possible malicious activities of the participating nodes is critical, considering their potential impacts on public safety. The structure of VANETs inspires the exploration of distributed solutions for various issues in VANETs including security. In addition to distributed data processing and evaluation, distributed machine learning, federated learning, blockchain, fog computing, and distributed software-defined networking are being explored for different security aspects of VANETs. Nonetheless, the characteristics of VANETs and their security attacks offer varied challenges in adopting distributed approaches for the security of VANETs. In this paper, we investigate these challenges, review the state-of-the-art distributed approaches for security enhancement in VANETs, present a taxonomy, and identify their limitations. We also recommend a set of future research directions based on the identified limitations.