A dual hashing-based authentication and secure data transmission scheme for vehicular cloud environment using MECC with optimal resource allocation mechanism

Vehicle cloud computing (VCC) is a recent area of study that blends vehicular networks with cloud computing, offering networking and sensor capabilities to vehicles for interaction with other vehicles and roadside infrastructure. Integrating unidentified vehicles and infrastructure through a public network has raised concerns about security and privacy in VCC. Several researchers have proposed secure authentication mechanisms to address these issues and ensure secure data transmission in VCC. However, exchanging vehicle data in a vehicular cloud (VC) system presents specific challenges, including maintaining data privacy and implementing lightweight authentication procedures. Therefore, this study proposes an efficient authentication and secure data transfer mechanism for VC systems. The proposed approach utilizes Dual Hashing-based Secure Hashing Algorithm-384 (DHS384) and Modified Elliptical Curve Cryptography (MECC). An optimal resource allocation (RA) scheme is introduced to allocate VC resources optimally to a suitable virtual machine using the Improved Harris Hawks Optimization (IHHO) algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms existing approaches and enhances security.