HAA: A Novel Hybrid Authentication Scheme for VANETs Integrating Certificate-Based and Identity-Based Cryptography with Advanced Attack Detection

In order to improve traffic efficiency and road safety, intelligent transportation systems rely on Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs), which allow for encrypted communication. Nevertheless, strong authentication procedures are required since VANETs are dynamic and hence vulnerable to security risks including message manipulation, impersonation, and Sybil attacks. Current systems encounter issues like slowness, computational burden, and scalability constraints; these affect both identity-based and certificate-based authentication. Using a combination of certificate-based and identity-based cryptography, as well as an attack detection module based on machine learning, this study presents a new Hybrid Authentication Architecture (HAA). To guarantee security and efficiency, the HAA uses certificate-based mechanisms for important safety messages and lightweight identity-based procedures for everyday communications. With a latency reduction of 60%, computational overhead reduction of 25%, and support for up to 8,000 vehicles with an attack detection accuracy of 98%, the simulation results show that HAA is superior. With the possibility of incorporation into 5G-enabled systems and post-quantum cryptography frameworks in the future, the suggested architecture provides a scalable and efficient solution for secure VANET communications.