An efficient certificate revocation validation scheme with k-means clustering for vehicular ad hoc networks

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are emerging as a promising approach to improve traffic safety and provide a wide range of wireless applications to passengers in vehicles. To launch reliable and trusted vehicular communications, one prerequisite is to ensure peer vehicles´ credibility, by means of digital certificate validation from messages that are sent out by other vehicles. However, in vehicular communication systems, certificate validation is more time sensitive than in traditional networks, because each vehicle receives a large number of messages in a short period of time. Another issue that needs to be tackled is the unsuccessful delivery of information between vehicles and other entities on the road due to their high rate of mobility. For these reasons, we need new solutions to speed up the process of certificate validation. In this article, we propose a certificate revocation status validation scheme; this uses the concept of clustering in the realm of data mining, which can meet the aforementioned requirements. We employ the technique of k-means clustering to boost up the efficiency of certificate validation, thereby enhancing the security of VANETs. Additionally, a comprehensive analysis in terms of security for the scheme is presented; and the analytical results demonstrate that this scheme can effectively improve the validation of a certificate, thus securing the vehicular communication in vehicular networks.