An efficient key agreement and anonymous privacy preserving scheme for vehicular ad‐hoc networks with handover authentication

Summary Vehicular ad‐hoc networks (VANETs) have gained significant attention in recent years due to their potential to improve the safety and efficiency of transportation systems. VANETs are a type of wireless ad‐hoc network that enables communication between vehicles and between vehicles and roadside infrastructure. VANETs can also improve the efficiency of transportation systems by reducing traffic congestion and improving traffic flow. In addition to improving safety and efficiency, VANETs also face several challenges. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring the security and privacy of the data transmitted over the network. In this manuscript, an anonymous authentication scheme for VANET users is proposed along with privacy preservation and confidentiality. An efficient session key agreement protocol is designed for transferring location‐based information between the vehicle user and the roadside unit (RSU). Further, updated session keys are transferred to the subsequent RSU, when the vehicle user moves to another location. Moreover, re‐authentication of VANET users is completely evaded during to handover authentication, thus reducing the computational overhead. In addition, Resistance to different security assaults is discussed in this work through informal analysis. Finally, performance is compared with different relevant schemes and validated through Cygwin software.