VehChain - An Experimental Study of a Blockchain-based CAN Bus Security Solution

The Controller-Area-Network (CAN} Bus has become a vulnerable target because of its ability to manage real-time plaintext vehicle data. Vulner-abilities include Man-in-the-Middle (MitM), Sniffing, Spoofing, Replay, Denial-of-Service (DoS), and other attacks originating from embedded malware or external attacks from the connected Internet. The existing work for CAN Bus enhancement relies on a centralized authority, which causes a single point of security failure. This work discusses decentralized CAN Bus security through a blockchain-reminiscent method, improving the security against CAN Bus attacks. A lab test-bed is built using different Electronic Control Units (ECUs} for performance validation, including ECUs manufactured by Microchip Technology. Instead of simulation, which is employed in other approaches, security attacks are conducted on a Buick Encore vehicle. The results from this study exhibit that VehChain protects CAN Frame data from Sniffing, Spoofing, Replay, and Denial of Service (DoS} attacks by utilizing secure Hashed Message Authentication Codes (HMACs}, message counters, and key synchronization.

VehChain - An Experimental Study of a Blockchain-based CAN Bus Security Solution

Aatman Joshi, University of Louisville; Anup, Kumar; Derock Xie, KCD; Yi Huang, InfoBeyond Technology LLC; Jayant K. Debnath, Bin Xie, InfoBeyond Technology