Enabling Secure Vehicle to Infrastructure Communication via Two-Factor Authentication

Fueled by the growth in autonomy and the widespread availability of cellular and other forms of connectivity in transportation, interest in Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication has risen remarkably in recent years. While primarily viewed as a catalyst for the future of fully autonomous driving, V2X communication holds far-reaching implications for modern transportation systems, including smart traffic lights. We present a tailored two-factor authentication scheme for verifying the identity of vehicles engaging with smart infrastructure. This scheme effectively thwarts potential malicious actors situated on roadsides from assuming the guise of legitimate vehicles, thus bolstering the security of traffic signal controllers. These controllers rely on vehicle-shared messages to ascertain real-time traffic conditions and refine signal phase timings. The proposed scheme combines a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) channel for cryptographic certificate verification with a line-of-sight (LOS) channel for visual confirmation. Diverging from prior efforts concerning the integration of NLOS and LOS authentication for Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) security, our approach capitalizes on visual attention within the infrastructure-based computer-vision system to visually validate the vehicle's identity. To demonstrate the scheme's efficacy, we implemented it on a hardware platform. Furthermore, we explore the interplay between vehicle speed, detection accuracy, and security through hardware-in-the-loop simulation.