Blockchain-empowered decentralised trust management for the Internet of Vehicles security

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) requires trust management to implement effective authentication and authorization of nodes, as it is not possible to establish trusted connections to the roadside components that eventually a vehicle will meet during its journey, ahead of time. To cope with this issue, dynamic access control is required, where authorizations are granted considering security policies and the node trustworthiness. However, decentralized trust management is a preferable solution, but it implies a considerable consumption of energy. Consumption is further exacerbated by the means needed to protect from attacks the trust management entities themselves. This work proposes suitable trust management for the IoT and IoV by exploiting the eventual consistency and security guarantees of blockchain. The design of a solution based on such technology is described, and an empirical assessment of its protection degree is provided.