Enhanced DSRC Security

Applications using dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) are being developed to prevent automobile accidents. Many DSRC implementations, applications, and network stacks are not mature. They have not been adequately tested and verified. This study illustrates the security evaluation of a DSRC wireless application in vehicular environments (DSRC/WAVE) protocol implementation. The study team set up a simulation of a working road side unit (RSU) on real DSRC devices. The team's experiments work on the Cohda testbed with DSRC application wsm-channel. The team extended the functionality of wsm-channel, an implementation of WAVE short message protocol (WSMP) for broadcasting GPS data in vehicular communications, to broadcast car information and RSU instructions. Next, the study team performed Denial of Service attacks to determine how few packets needed to be dropped to cause automobile crashes. Hidden Markov Models (HMM) are constructed using sniffed side-channel information since operational packets would be encrypted. The inferred HMM tracks the protocol status over time. To test HMM’s ability to predict which packets will be dropped, the study team used a simulation-based experiment and implemented a DSRC-supported stop light application. Using these simulations, the team was able to show that they could accurately identify the packets they needed to drop by using timing and packet size side channels. The attack simulation using inter-packet delay side-channel features worked best to drop necessary packets with a 2.5 % false-positive rate (FPR) while the attack using a packet size side-channel worked with a 9.5% FPR.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $82050
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747117

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  Clemson University

  110 Lowry Hall
  Box 340911
  Clemson, SC  United States  29634-0911

  Benedict College

  1600 Harden Street
  Columbia, South Carolina  United States  29204
• Managing Organizations:

  Clemson University

  110 Lowry Hall
  Box 340911
  Clemson, SC  United States  29634-0911
• Project Managers:

  Chowdhury, Mashrur

• Performing Organizations:

  Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility

  Clemson University
  Clemson, SC  United States  29634
• Principal Investigators:

  Brooks, Richard

• Start Date: 20181201
• Expected Completion Date: 20200228
• Actual Completion Date: 20210630
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Computer network protocols; Computer security; Connected vehicles; Dedicated short range communications; Risk assessment; Traffic safety; Vehicle to vehicle communications
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01842726
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747117
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Apr 19 2022 10:24AM