In-Vehicle Digital Twin-Based Collision Warning Framework with Sybil Attack Detection

Mohammad Imtiaz Hasan, Abyad Enan, Jean Michel Tine, Araf Rahman, M Sabbir Salek, Mashrur Chowdhury

Connected Vehicles (CVs) rely extensively on communication technologies to enable data-driven predictive analyses for enhancing performance and safety. These communication channels can be exploited by adversaries to launch cyberattacks such as Sybil attacks, which could threaten both safety-critical and mobility applications, leaving CVs vulnerable and putting human lives at risk. As CV deployment continues to expand, the need to detect and mitigate cyberattacks in real-time becomes increasingly urgent. This study presents an in-vehicle Digital Twin (DT)-based collision warning framework with built-in capabilities for Sybil attacks detection. The framework integrates a Temporal Convolutional Network (TCN) for learning temporal dependencies in vehicle trajectory data and Hierarchical Navigable Small World (HNSW) algorithms for efficient similarity-based classification. Our framework is evaluated on real-world Sybil attack data, collected through field experiments. The framework achieved accuracy, recall, and F1 scores of 0.984, 1.00, and 0.944, respectively, in detecting Sybil-generated fake vehicles. During the safety evaluation, the framework reduced the mean Time Exposed Time-To-Collision (TET) and mean Time Integrated Time-To-Collision (TIT) of near-collision events by 88% and 72%, respectively. Furthermore, real-world feasibility evaluation shows that the framework conformed to the standardized maximum allowable latency for safety applications and operated well within the capacity of modern processors -- demonstrating the promise of an in-vehicle DT-based framework as an attack mitigation mechanism against Sybil attacks for next-generation CVs.