Security-Enhanced Three-Party Pairwise Secret Key Agreement Protocol For Fog-Based Vehicular Ad-Hoc Communications

The notion of fog-based vehicular ad-hoc network has been introduced by the integration of fog-based computing paradigm into the conventional vehicular ad-hoc networks. This integration is envisioned to bring a more enjoyable driving environment with an enhanced level of safety. Evidently, one of the most challenging steps in reaching this goal is how to make these immense communications secure. Shared secret key agreement protocols are one of the approved techniques for this purpose if implemented and used properly. A considerable number of such techniques proposed thus far; nevertheless, they have mostly failed to reach all required security metrics besides a desirable performance. Therefore, to address this influential demand, in this article, after the cryptanalysis of a state-of-the-art and distinguished protocol, we put forward a security-enhanced three-party pairwise shared key agreement protocol for fog-based vehicular communications with 23.65% improvement in computational cost. In addition to informal justifications, the proposed protocol is also verified formally by utilization of reputable "ProVerif" tool. In particular, comparative evaluations are presented in terms of security metrics and performance to demonstrate the appropriateness and betterment of the proposed protocol in case of simultaneous consideration of security and efficiency. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc.