  Vehicle Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have experienced significant development in
recent years, playing a crucial role in enhancing the driving experience by
enabling safer and more efficient inter-vehicle interactions through
information exchange. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication is particularly
vital as it not only helps to prevent collisions and improve traffic efficiency
but also provides essential situational awareness to drivers or autonomous
driving systems. Communication is typically supported by Roadside Units (RSUs);
however, in practical applications, vehicles may exceed the communication range
of RSUs, thus exposing them to various malicious attacks. Additionally,
considering the limited computational resources of onboard units (OBUs) in
vehicles, there is a high demand for designing lightweight security protocols
that support V2V communication. To address this issue, this paper proposes an
efficient anonymous V2V identity authentication protocol tailored for scenarios
that lack RSU support. The proposed protocol has been formally assessed using
the Scyther tool, demonstrating its capability to withstand major typical
malicious attacks. Performance evaluations indicate that the proposed protocol
is efficient in terms of communication and computational overhead, making it a
viable solution for V2V vehicle communication.
