The integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) has emerged as a promising solution to overcome the limited coverage of conventional roadside unit (RSU)-based infrastructures. However, UAVs operate in open environments and cannot be fully trusted, while the rapid advancement of quantum computing threatens the long-term security of classical public-key cryptographic systems. As a result, many existing UAV-based VANET authentication schemes face fundamental limitations in future deployments. Most existing schemes either lack post-quantum security or incur excessive computational and communication overhead, making them unsuitable for real-time and high-mobility vehicular environments. In addition, the common assumptions of trusted UAVs do not align with realistic threat models. To address these issues, this paper proposes a lightweight post-quantum authentication and key exchange protocol based on the module learning with errors (MLWE) problem and physically unclonable functions (PUFs). The proposed scheme treats UAVs as untrusted relay nodes and excludes them from session key generation. Its security is evaluated using informal analysis, the real-or-random (RoR) model, BAN logic, and AVISPA, while performance evaluation indicates improved efficiency compared to existing schemes.
The integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) has emerged as a promising solution to overcome the limited coverage of conventional roadside unit (RSU)-based infrastructures. However, UAVs operate in open environments and cannot be fully trusted, while the rapid advancement of quantum computing threatens the long-term security of classical public-key cryptographic systems. As a result, many existing UAV-based VANET authentication schemes face fundamental limitations in future deployments. Most existing schemes either lack post-quantum security or incur excessive computational and communication overhead, making them unsuitable for real-time and high-mobility vehicular environments. In addition, the common assumptions of trusted UAVs do not align with realistic threat models. To address these issues, this paper proposes a lightweight post-quantum authentication and key exchange protocol based on the module learning with errors (MLWE) problem and physically unclonable functions (PUFs). The proposed scheme treats UAVs as untrusted relay nodes and excludes them from session key generation. Its security is evaluated using informal analysis, the real-or-random (RoR) model, BAN logic, and AVISPA, while performance evaluation indicates improved efficiency compared to existing schemes.
With the rapid development of integrated vehicle-road-cloud systems, RoadSide Units (RSUs) have become crucial for communication in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs). However, RSU failures disrupt real-time vehicle-to-cloud connectivity, exacerbating traffic congestion and safety risks. Recently, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a promising solution for temporary mobile base stations due to their rapid deployment and flexibility. Nevertheless, the open and dynamic nature of UAV-vehicle communication networks presents critical challenges in achieving both secure communication and lightweight authentication. Furthermore, the unsupervised deployment environment of UAVs makes them particularly vulnerable to physical attacks. To address these challenges, in this paper, we propose a secure and lightweight UAV-assisted vehicle authentication scheme based on quantum key. The scheme leverages quantum keys, hash functions and XOR to ensure secrecy and traceability of malicious entities. Utilising the Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) and fuzzy extractor to resist physical attacks. A private blockchain architecture is implemented for secure data storage and management. We verify the scheme’s security using the real-or-random (ROR) oracle model and the Scyther tool. The experimental results show that, compared to other schemes, our scheme has a lower overhead, with an average packet loss rate reduction of 11.42% – 28.8% and an average communication delay reduction of 14.41%–63%.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites have different security problems in addition to nice properties such as low latency and wide coverage. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) rely on these satellites for communication, which makes authentication with Network Control Centres (NCCs) critical. In this paper, a physically unclonable function (PUF)-based lightweight, post-quantum mutual authentication and key establishment protocol tailored for satellite-assisted UAV-NCC links is proposed to address these problems. The scheme uses the benefits of PUF and lightweight cryptographic operations to obtain an efficient scheme for resource-constrained environments while ensuring mutual authentication and quantum-resistant session key establishment.
Secure communication in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks is critical for a wide range of civil and military applications, from precision agriculture and disaster response to critical infrastructure monitoring. These missions require lightweight, tamper-resistant, and quantum-secure authentication mechanisms. We examine the recently proposed Quantum-Resistant Identity Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme for UAV Networks Based on the Kyber Algorithm (LIGKYX) and demonstrate its critical weaknesses, including a lack of Perfect Forward/Backward Secrecy (PFS/PBS), and desynchronization vulnerabilities. To address these limitations, we propose a novel authentication and key agreement protocol that integrates SRAM-based Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) with the Kyber post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, eliminating the reliance on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and stateful counters used in LIGKYX. The security of the proposed protocol is validated through both formal and informal analyses, demonstrating strong resistance to replay, impersonation, man-in-the-middle, desynchronization, and UAV capture attacks. Performance evaluation confirms its efficiency: the total communication overhead is reduced by 7.1% (from 1836 bytes in LIGKYX to 1705 bytes in the proposed scheme), and the total authentication time is reduced by more than 54%, from 87.84 ms in LIGKYX to 40.23 ms in the proposed scheme. These improvements demonstrate that the protocol not only strengthens security but also significantly reduces computation and communication costs. Overall, the proposed solution offers a lightweight, scalable, and quantum-resistant authentication framework tailored for resource-constrained UAV environments, representing a substantial advancement over existing schemes such as LIGKYX.
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network serves as the core infrastructure of the future low-altitude intelligent network, providing flexible aerial smart services for various industries through inter-UAV collaboration and ground-air connectivity. With the advancement of quantum computing, quantum algorithms pose a serious threat to UAV communication networks. Traditional authentication protocols based on classical number-theoretic problems are no longer secure against quantum attacks. To address the challenges of quantum threats and the inherent characteristics of UAVs, such as high mobility and resource constraints, this paper proposes a quantum resistant authentication and key agreement protocol for UAV networks. The comprehensive informal security analysis demonstrates the robustness of the protocol against various attacks, particularly attacks based on quantum computing. Furthermore, the authentication component of the protocol adopts a lightweight design, reducing computational overhead by up to 53.57%, thereby balancing security and efficiency.
With the widespread deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in both military and civilian domains, the demand for secure and encrypted communications in UAV networks integrated with ground stations has become increasingly prominent. Authentication and key agreement protocols are widely regarded as essential technical mechanisms for ensuring the security of data transmission in wireless communication environments. However, the rapid advancement of quantum computing technologies poses potential security threats to conventional protocols based on elliptic curve cryptography. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a quantum-secure authentication and key agreement protocol tailored for UAV–ground station communication scenarios. By incorporating Crystal-Kyber, the proposed protocol ensures quantum resistance while striving to minimize system computational overhead. The results of the informal security analysis indicate that the proposed protocol can effectively withstand a variety of known attacks. In addition, comprehensive comparative evaluations with existing related protocols demonstrate that, while maintaining low computational overhead, the proposed scheme exhibits stronger robustness in terms of security and functional properties.
In Social Internet of Vehicles (SIoV) environments, fog computing plays a crucial role in supporting real-time services by reducing the latency inherent in cloud-based architectures. However, fog nodes are typically deployed in physically exposed roadside environments and can be operated by several system operators, making them vulnerable to physical compromise and unauthorized access. Despite these threats, many existing authentication schemes assume fog nodes to be fully trusted or honest-but-curious, allowing them to decrypt transmitted data using a session key shared among vehicles, fog nodes, and cloud servers. To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a quantum-secure pairwise key agreement scheme that establishes distinct session keys for vehicle–fog, fog–cloud, and vehicle–cloud communications. This design effectively prevents the disclosure of sensitive information even in the event of fog node compromise. Furthermore, Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are employed to mitigate physical capture attacks, while lattice-based cryptography based on the Module Learning with Errors (MLWE) problem is integrated to ensure resistance against quantum computing attacks. The security of the proposed protocol is rigorously validated through formal analysis using AVISPA, BAN logic, and the Real-or-Random (RoR) model, in addition to informal security analysis. Comparative performance evaluations against related schemes demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves a balance between efficiency and security, making it well suited for practical deployment in SIoV environments.