While authentication is a necessary requirement to provide security in vehicular ad hoc networks, user's personal information such as identity and location must be kept private. The reliance on road side units or centralized trusted authority nodes to provide security services is critical because both are vulnerable, thus cannot be accessed by all users, which mean security absence. In this paper, we introduce a self-organized secure framework, deployed in vehicular ad hoc networks. The proposed framework solution is designed not only to provide an effective, integrated security and privacy-preserving mechanism but also to retain the availability of all security services even if there are no road side units at all and/or the trusted authority node is compromised. A decentralized tier-based security framework that depends on both trusted authority and some fully trusted nodes cooperated to distribute security services is presented. Our approach combines the useful features of both Shamir secret sharing with a trust-based technique to ensure continuity of achieving all security services. Mathematical analysis of security issues that the proposed framework achieves as well as the availability of offering security services is provided. Proposed framework examination was done to show the performance in terms of storage, computation complexity, and communication overhead as well as its resilience against various types of attacks. Comparisons with different types of security schemes showed that the protocol developed gave better results in most comparison parameters while being unique ensuring continuity of security services delivery.authentication, availability, privacy preservation, trust, vehicular ad hoc networks 1 | INTRODUCTION Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are an example of mobile ad hoc networks with additional features as their nodes (vehicles) move with high speed. In VANETs, vehicles can communicate with infrastructure through road side unit (RSU) via vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication and with each other via vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. 1 Each vehicle in VANET, according to dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) standards, broadcasts safety messages every 100 to 300 ms as well as data messages to other vehicles. 2 Data and safety-related information broadcasted by vehicles in an open-access environment makes security and privacy challenging issues in VANETs. 3 Unless proper diligence is taken, attackers can exploit user's information in performing several types of attacks that can harm both network and users. There are several security requirements that must be achieved to protect VANET against