Analyzing Attacks on Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC)

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the vulnerability of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control systems in vehicular networks, demonstrating that they are susceptible to attacks like jamming and data injection, and emphasizing the need for robust detection and control strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a rigorous attacker model and an evaluation framework for assessing CACC resilience against attacks, enabling comparison of controller robustness and attack effectiveness.

Findings

All analyzed controllers are vulnerable to jamming and data injection attacks.

Resilience varies significantly among different controllers.

Combining misbehavior detection with resilient control is essential for security.

Abstract

Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) is one of the driving applications of vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) and promises to bring more efficient and faster transportation through cooperative behavior between vehicles. In CACC, vehicles exchange information, which is relied on to partially automate driving; however, this reliance on cooperation requires resilience against attacks and other forms of misbehavior. In this paper, we propose a rigorous attacker model and an evaluation framework for this resilience by quantifying the attack impact, providing the necessary tools to compare controller resilience and attack effectiveness simultaneously. Although there are significant differences between the resilience of the three analyzed controllers, we show that each can be attacked effectively and easily through either jamming or data injection. Our results suggest a combination of misbehavior detection and resilient control algorithms with graceful degradation are necessary ingredients for secure and safe platoons.