Countermeasures against Worm Spreading

Abstract

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are essential components of the intelligent transport systems. They are attracting an increasing amount of interest in research and industrial sectors. Vehicular nodes are capable of transporting, sensing, processing information, and wireless communication, which makes them more vulnerable to worm infections than conventional hosts. This survey provides an overview on worm spreading over VANETs. We first briefly introduce the computer worms. Then the V2X communication and applications are discussed from malware and worms propagation perspective to show the indispensability of studying the characteristics of worm propagating on VANETs. The recent literature on worm spreading and containment on VANETs are categorized based on their research methods. The improvements and limitations of the existing studies are discussed. Next, the main factors influencing worm spreading in vehicular networks are discussed followed by a summary of countermeasure strategies designed to deal with these worms.