Distributed Ledger Technology as the enabler for the next generation Vehicular Security Infrastructure

Among the available communication systems, vehicular networks are emerging as one of the most promising and yet most challenging instantiations of mobile ad hoc network technologies. The large-scale deployment of such networks requires the enforcement of stringent security mechanisms that need to abide by the technical, societal, legal, and economical requirements of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Authentication is an effective process for validating user identity in vehicular networks. In particular, the most diffuse vehicular authentication methods rely on certificate distribution to entitle registered vehicles to access the system. However, an authentication method cannot guarantee network security by itself. Available industrial standards do not consider methods to promptly revoke certificates for those entities that do not comply with the nominal behavior typical of the ITS environment (i.e., misbehaving vehicles). The goal of this thesis is twofold. On one side, the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is investigated as an enabler for a transparent Vehicular Public Key Infrastructure (VPKI) suitable to protect Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) environments, while being compatible with international standards. A brand new security architecture is proposed to enhance current standards and other vehicular security schemes available in research. On the other side, the thesis presents the results of the experimental settings in different conditions, spanning from pseudo-real vehicular use cases to real scenarios like logistics vehicles' security lifecycle in the seaport.