Privacy-preserving authentication schemes for vehicular ad hoc networks: a survey

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are expected in improving road safety and traffic conditions, in which security is essential. In VANETs, the authentication of the vehicular access control is a crucial security service for both inter-vehicle and vehicle-roadside unit communications. Meanwhile, vehicles also have to be prevented from the misuse of the private information and the attacks on their privacy. There is a number of research work focusing on providing the anonymous authentication with preserved privacy in VANETs. In this paper, we specifically provide a survey on the privacy-preserving authentication (PPA) schemes proposed for VANETs. We investigate and categorize the existing PPA schemes by their key cryptographies for authentication and the mechanisms for privacy preservation. We also provide a comparative study/summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the existing PPA schemes. Lastly, the open issues and future objectives are identified for PPA in VANETs. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.