Exploring Realistic VANET Simulations for Anomaly Detection of DDoS Attacks

Simulation is widely accepted in Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) research due to the cost, safety and security issues associated with real world implementations and experimentation. However, several important factors must be considered if we expect the simulation results to be realistic, comparable and extendable to the real world, especially when it comes to security issues. These factors can largely be classed under three broad categories i.e. the Grid Pattern, the Communication Settings and the Mobility Pattern. Building on prior work, in this paper, we extend the simulation results of a VANET-based DDoS attack and an anomaly detection mechanism designed to detect the attack. We show that taken these factors into consideration leads to different results, affirming the need for considering these factors in simulations. We also discuss future research directions that result directly from our observations.