SC-VDTwinAuth: Smart-contract Assisted Handover Authentication Protocol for Vehicular Digital Twin Network

Vehicular digital twin network is partitioned into multiple networks either due to the geographical differences or their accelerating expansion, which necessitates a secure and incessant transition of cross-regional vehicles. Therefore, in this dynamic topology, the handover process for cross-regional vehicles becomes imperative. The literature encompasses an abundance of blockchain-based handover mechanisms, specifically designed for vehicle and the roadside units. Unfortunately, some of these are not feasible for vehicular digital twin networks due to their high computational overhead and susceptibility to security threats. Therefore, this paper presents a handover authentication protocol for the blockchain-based vehicular digital twin networks, leveraging the smart contract. It entirely depends on digital twin, which reduces the burden of the vehicle and enhances the efficiency and security of the handover process. Security strengths and competency against attacks like sybil and impersonation attacks are investigated through a real-or-random oracle model (ROR) and non-mathematical analysis. The operational analysis evaluates the proposed mechanism with pertinent works based on security functionalities, computation, and communication overhead. Moreover, to illustrate suggested smart contract's viability and the reasonable cost of blockchain consumption, it is implemented via the Ethereum test network. Hence, obtained results indicate the relevancy of the mechanism for vehicular digital twin networks.