The Controller Area Network (CAN) is a standard bus-based communication protocol for reliable Cyber-Physical Systems. For instance, in cars, around 100 Electronic Control Units (ECUs) are connected via CAN. Recent news proves that attackers can easily connect external devices to the CAN bus and gain control over ECUs communications, have access to the car, and possibly steal it. Despite the existing literature on authentication protocols designed for CAN buses, no existing work currently tackles the further threat imposed by the growing interest and developments of quantum computing. In this paper, we propose$L^{2}S^{2}C^{2}$, a novel post-quantum authentication protocol that leverages Physically Unclonable Functions (PUF) and Lattice-based Cryptography (LBC). The usage of PUF in$L^{2}S^{2}C^{2}$ensures low storage cost, while the lattice-based formulation ensures resistance to quantum attacks. _$\lrcorner \mathrm{r}^{2}S^{2}C^{2}$is resistant to different types of attacks such as replay, false message injection, plain text, collision, ML attacks, man-in-the-middle, impersonation, sybil, denial-of-service, and bus-off, other than quantum attacks. The performance analysis results reveal that$L^{2}S^{2}C^{2}$ensures improved security and reliability than the state-of-the-art.

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) faces significant challenges related to secure authentication, efficient communication, and privacy preservation due to the high mobility of vehicles, the need for real-time data processing, varying quality of communication links, and the diverse range of devices and protocols requiring interoperability. These challenges are further complicated by the large-scale, dynamic, and heterogeneous nature of IoV systems. Traditional approaches using Road Side Connecting Nodes (RSCNs) face challenges like limited range, high costs, and single points of failure. Drone-assisted IoV (DIoV) networks address these issues by using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as mobile edge nodes, enhancing connectivity, extending coverage, and improving adaptability and resilience. To address these challenges, we propose SECURE, a drone-assisted, Physically Unclonable Function (PUF)-based authentication and privacy-preserving protocol integrated with edge computing. This architecture replaces RSCNs with edge nodes and incorporates UAVs as mobile edge nodes, providing extended coverage, reduced latency, and enhanced adaptability. The PUFs in SECURE generate unique hardware-based cryptographic keys, adding an additional layer of security, while edge computing offloads computational tasks, improves network efficiency, and further reduces latency. The formal security analysis, conducted using the Random Oracle Model (ROM), proves the robustness of the session key against active and passive adversaries. Furthermore, informal security analysis demonstrates that SECURE effectively resists various security attacks, while achieving confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity in DIoV. In SECURE, we have considered two types of devices for experiments: NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX and Raspberry Pi 4. The performance analysis, considering the results from Jetson Xavier NX, demonstrates that SECURE achieves maximum upto approximately 82.1% less communication cost and 78% faster computation time compared to the state-of-the-art schemes.

The innovations in wireless communication technologies, cloud computing, connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, the Internet of everything, etc. opened a way for the creation, development, advancement, and establishment of vehicular networks for emerging smart city applications. Among them, automated and connected vehicle technologies are among the most researched topics. The currently available concepts are only a fraction of what is being developed for the future. In connected vehicles, the Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) is a promising concept where cars or vehicles can use various communication technologies to communicate with the driver or other entities on the road. In this paper, we explore the future entities in a smart city to which a vehicle can communicate. Moreover, we investigate the importance of warning messages for reducing road transportation issues as IoVs already proved that it could reduce worldwide traffic issues, accident rates, transportation issues, etc. to a particular extent. In spite of several attractive features, ensuring security and lightweight property is one of the challenges in an IoV scenario. Therefore, we propose a Secure Authentication for Future Entities (SAFE) protocol, which uses cryptographic operations for enhancing security and preserving privacy.

The Worldwide road traffic problems, accident rates, transportation issues are increasing despite the improvements in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a promising paradigm to the better and safe future of the automotive field. This complex, dynamic mobile network system allows data sharing between vehicles, its surrounding portable devices, road-side units, infrastructures, sensors, cloud, etc. However, the IoV provides several benefits and opportunities in different applications, it introduces challenges in security. In this paper, we propose an efficient authentication system for secure Vehicle-to- Vehicle (V2V) communications in an IoV scenario. The security analysis reveals that our scheme can defend against strong attacks. Our experimental outcomes on a simulated environment (on a desktop computer and Raspberry Pi) reveal that our proposed scheme can work with less computation time while ensuring integrity of the message in a strong adversarial scenario.