MVSec: Secure and Easy-to-Use Pairing of Mobile Devices with Vehicles (CMU-CyLab-14-006)

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, drivers and passengers will naturally want to connect their devices to their cars. Malicious entities can and likely will try to attack such systems in order to compromise other vehicular components or eavesdrop on privacy-sensitive information. It is imperative, therefore, to address security concerns from the onset of these technologies. While guaranteeing secure wireless vehicle-to-mobile communication is crucial to the successful integration of mobile devices in vehicular environments, usability is of equally critical importance. Several researchers proposed different methods for key agreement between two devices that share no prior secret. However, many of these proposals do not take advantage of the vehicular environment. With MVSec, we propose several novel approaches to secure vehicle-to-mobile communication tailored specifically for vehicular environments. We present novel security protocols and their security analysis. We also provide complete implementation and user study results demonstrating the feasibility and the usability of MVSec.