Security of Wi-Fi on-board intra-vehicular communication: Field trials of tunnel scenario

Abstract

Wireless communications are increasingly-often selected as a cable replacement for on-board vehicular networks. When a wireless technology implements safety critical application, cryptographic countermeasures are required. This paper describes the impact of security on intra-vehicular communication in a real tunnel scenario, e.g. for urban transit or mining vehicles where the usage of security is mandatory in order to maintain the system safety. The measurement campaign was carried out in a sport ski-tunnel using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Wi-Fi modules. The objective was to understand the impact of overhead on security in a tunnel considering line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) scenarios. In addition, the study compared different solutions for security to evaluating lesser known protocols. These field trials showed that wireless security is feasible up to 300 m in NLOS without repeaters. Finally, the experiment presented confirms the effectiveness of the Host Identity Protocol when used as standalone or in combination with other security solution.

Cybersecurity Considerations for Communication Based Train Control

“…In this Section, we collect some types of attacks on IV communications often discussed in the literature (see, for instance, [29], [30], [31]) 4 . Consider an adversary onboard the train (see Figure 11) with his laptop that performs various attacks against IV Wi-Fi communications.…”

“…To do so, Soderi et al [30], [31], [29] proposes using Host Identity Protocol (HIP) for industrial and railway applications to secure the IV communication system architecture.…”

“…Figure 13 presents the results of using HIP in a tunnel scenario similar to the one where a CBTC typically operates. The measurements, extracted from [30], used OpenHIP [34], an open-source version of HIPv1 [35]. Results show how HIP introduces an acceptable overhead of throughput loss, jitter, and packet loss up to 300 m without any repeater and in Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) configurations [30].…”

“…The measurements, extracted from [30], used OpenHIP [34], an open-source version of HIPv1 [35]. Results show how HIP introduces an acceptable overhead of throughput loss, jitter, and packet loss up to 300 m without any repeater and in Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) configurations [30]. HIP also makes the conduit resilient to MITM-type and eavesdropping attacks and makes the communication between the two zones (i.e., between two physical areas of the train) transparent and secure, significantly reducing the security risk associated with these attacks.…”

Cybersecurity considerations for CBTC

“…HIP with the Base Exchange (BEX) initial stage establishes a Secure Association (SA) between end-nodes, then both hosts use IP Security (IPSec) in order to exchange data via a secure tunnel, as shown in Figure 2. Measurements campaign in a tunnel scenario has shown that HIP IPSec is a promising protocol to secure intra-vehicular communications in terms of throughput, jitter and packet loss [7].…”