Vehicle Authentication with Threshold Signatures

Abstract

This thesis work aims to evaluate the practical application of threshold signature schemes in vehicular settings, with a specific focus on strengthening the security and redundancy of private keys used in mutual TLS (mTLS) in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication. The proposed VATS (Vehicular Application of Threshold Signature) scheme introduces an innovative approach to secure key sharing among electronic control units (ECUs) within vehicles, significantly enhancing key management security. Using a carefully designed secure secret sharing scheme, the VATS scheme enables the reconstruction of the private key by using a predetermined threshold of ECUs. This approach ensures that no single ECU possesses the complete private key, mitigating the risks associated with key compromise or unauthorized access. Instead, multiple ECUs collaboratively contribute their shares to reconstruct the private key, thus establishing a higher level of security and resilience in vehicular networks. To validate the effectiveness and practicality of the VATS scheme, extensive evaluations and benchmarking have been performed. The performance of the scheme, including execution time, resource utilization, and scalability, has been measured and analyzed. These evaluations provide valuable insights into the scheme’s efficiency and its ability to handle various amounts of participants in the scheme.