A Simulation-Based Security Benchmarking Approach for Assessing Cooperative Driving Automation (CDA) Applications

Paper in proceeding, 2025

This paper presents our initial contributions toward defining security benchmarks for simulation-based assessment of Cooperative Driving Automation (CDA) applications. A security benchmark is a process or procedure for assessing and validating a system’s ability to achieve its operational objectives in the presence of specific security attacks. This work lays the groundwork for developing security benchmarks that assess the robustness of CDA applications against jamming attacks. The driving scenario and the attack model are the core components of our proposed security benchmark. We used two scenarios braking and sinusoidal as a stimulus for evaluating the robustness of a platooning application modeled in a simulation framework called Plexe. The platooning application is equipped with a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) controller. We injected barrage jamming attacks into the physical layer of the wireless communication system modeled by the IEEE 802.11p protocol. We demonstrate that jamming attacks can compromise safety, leading to emergency braking and collision incidents among platooning vehicles. Our findings also indicate that the severity of jamming attacks varies with the driving scenario, with the most severe impacts (i.e., collisions) occurring when the attack is injected during vehicle acceleration.