ECA-VFog: An efficient certificateless authentication scheme for 5G-assisted vehicular fog computing

Area of Science:

• Vehicular Fog Computing
• 5G Networks
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• Fifth-generation (5G)-enabled vehicular fog computing supports smart transport but faces challenges in message protection and safety.
• Existing certificateless authentication schemes have limitations including high communication costs, security vulnerabilities, and computational complexity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an efficient certificateless authentication scheme (ECA-VFog) for 5G-assisted vehicular fog computing systems.
• To address the security and efficiency limitations of current authentication methods in smart transportation.

Main Methods:

• Developed the ECA-VFog scheme utilizing efficient elliptic curve cryptography operations.
• Leveraged a fog server supported by a 5G-base station for scheme operation.
• Conducted a security analysis to evaluate the scheme's viability and value.

Main Results:

• The ECA-VFog scheme demonstrates efficient computation costs: 2.3539 ms for signing and 1.5752 ms for verification.
• Achieved low communication costs (124 bytes) and energy consumption (25.610432 mJ).
• Performance comparison shows ECA-VFog is more cost-effective than existing schemes in computation, communication, and energy.

Conclusions:

• The proposed ECA-VFog scheme offers a viable and valuable solution for secure and efficient authentication in 5G vehicular fog computing.
• ECA-VFog significantly improves cost-effectiveness compared to existing authentication schemes for smart transportation.