Implementation of Non-Standard Digital Signature Method in Vehicle-to-Everything Environments

Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology is increasingly gaining traction worldwide and represents an important step towards improving driving safety by creating real inter-vehicle networks. From a security perspective, V2X technology relies on a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and follows currently developed methods, particularly public-key algorithms. The advent of quantum computers threatens existing computer systems, compromising public-key-based systems’ security. This presents a serious problem that V2X must confront immediately. This thesis's main objective is to find a point of convergence between V2X and Post-Quantum Cryptography, which is a solution to counter the potential threats quantum computing poses. To achieve this goal, the work has focused on replacing the current standard algorithms for the message digital signature process, based on elliptic curves, with a Post-Quantum algorithm. The specific objectives to accomplish the main goal of the thesis are: - Integrating PQC APIs into the code used, to extend the standard followed for inter-vehicle communication. Specifically, this includes incorporating functions for key creation, message signing, and signature verification, which are crucial in the process of generating and sending CAM in a V2X environment. - Extending the structure and fields of the certificates of the entities involved in the V2X PKI infrastructure. Specifically, the RCA, AA, and AT use X.509 certificates where the keys are elliptic curve-based, as is the certificate signature. The expected outcome of this work is to generate new certificates that support the use of Post-Quantum Cryptography algorithms. - Sending new non-standard CAM messages over the network interface, containing the new certificate within the appropriate fields of the Secured Header and appending the new digital signature, generated using the specific PQC API and calculated on the unsecured part of the message. To reach these goals an open-source framework has been used, both for digital certificate generation and CAM/PKI message generator. The conducted work shows that is feasible the integration and extension of V2X standards with PQC algorithms, but the main disadvantage noticed has been the higher dimension of the new CAM messages rather than the standard messages, due to the sizes of PQC signatures and keys. These results potentially influence future standards in automotive security and contribute to the broader field of post-quantum cryptography.