BDRA: Blockchain and Decentralized Identifiers Assisted Secure Registration and Authentication for VANETs

Abstract

In vehicular <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ad hoc</i> networks (VANETs), road safety and road traffic efficiency can be improved through message interaction between vehicle users, which inevitably relies on secure identity authentication, and message credibility verification. Existing authentication and message verification mechanisms are prone to severe single points of failure and low authentication efficiency due to their reliance on the trusted third party, especially during the user registration phase. This article proposes a double-layer blockchain and decentralized identifiers assisted secure registration and authentication (BDRA) mechanism for decentralized VANETs, which can achieve the following advantages: 1) realizing a secure and decentralized user registration phase by using the decentralized identifier (DID) technology; 2) accomplishing efficient authentication and message verification by combining double-layer blockchain, DIDs and a reputation feedback strategy; and 3) enabling a more efficient cross section reregistration that reduces the communication time by 30%. The security features and efficiency of the BDRA mechanism are demonstrated by carrying out security analysis and performance evaluation, which is based on the hyperledger fabric (HLF) platform.