Fatal C-V2X denial-of-service attack degrading quality of service in a highway scenario

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack, which prevents other nodes from accessing resources, is one of the fatal security threats in the V2X field. This paper analyzes the DoS attack on C-V2X networks from various viewpoints. First, we derive the conditions for the vulnerable vehicle that are expected to suffer fatal damage when subjected to the DoS attack. Then, we provide a method for the attacker to identify the vulnerable vehicle satisfying the derived conditions. We also verify that the attacker can more easily identify the vulnerable vehicle on a highway where the traffic density is generally constant. We confirm that the DoS attack that attacks the vulnerable vehicle satisfying the derived conditions causes more damage than the conventional DoS attack provided in another study in terms of reliability, coverage, and timeliness (up to 2% reduction in packet delivery ratio, up to 30 m reduction in communication coverage, and 0.15-second increase in the lower 1% update delay). In addition, we compare the ratio of packet errors by MAC of C-V2X to those caused by the DoS attack and verify the lethality of an attack depending on the traffic density. This paper provides insight into DoS attacks on C-V2X network, and future studies will cover the topic of attack detection and defense.