PLVA: Privacy-Preserving and Lightweight V2I Authentication Protocol

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) significantly improves the efficiency and safety of driving since it reduces traffic jams and avoiding accidents, in which the necessary security goals are guaranteed using cryptographic method. In reality, the computation efficiency is very important in implementing the protocol in VANETs. When a vehicle with high speed enters in the coverage of a roadside unit (RSU), the computation overhead of authentication not only affects the communication experience, but also downgrades the driving safety. The feasible solution is to share a message in advance between vehicle and RSU with the help of certification authority (CA), however, CA can deduce the vehicle’s route that should be privacy. In this paper, a privacy-preserving and lightweight V2I authentication (PLVA) protocol is proposed. Specifically, in the beginning phase, all roadside units in a region are converted to a vector using the Moore curve technique, then, a vehicle deduces the RSUs’ information on its planning route using BGN homomorphic encryption before the vehicle begins its trip, meanwhile, CA knows nothing about the route plan although it assists the above process. With the deduced RSUs’ information, fast authentication is achieved between vehicle and each RSU on its route. Moreover, performance evaluation illustrates that our PLVA is efficient in practical VANETs environment.