A key aspect to ensure that Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETS) work properly is the provision of reliable and real time information to users. In order to achieve this goal, on the one hand, nodes must cooperate actively in relaying the messages to reach as many users as possible to warn them about possible hazards. On the other hand, users should be able to rely on the received information, so they should be able to verify that the relayed network data are true. As distributed and decentralized networks, security problems such as prevention of false information injection, and detection of misbehaviour could be solved through cooperation among nodes. In this work we propose a set of countermeasures to prevent selfish behaviour and malicious attacks, making use of node revocation through cooperation enforcement mechanisms and isolation of malicious nodes from the network. The proper performance of the proposed techniques has been evaluated with many simulations, and the results show that the countermeasures described in this work increase not only efficiency but also security of communications.

VANETs, cooperation, self-management, security, misbehaviour, ITS