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JCM 2026 Vol.21(2): 233-244
Doi: 10.12720/jcm.21.2.233-244

A Post-Quantum Certificateless Aggregate Signature Scheme for VANETs Resilient to Rogue-Key Attacks

Zainab Y. Al Tmari1, Mohanad Ahmed Abdulrazzaq Diwan Alzamili2, Jalal M. H. Altmemi2, Karrar Ali Abdullah3, Mahmood A. Al-Shareeda4,5,*, Mohammed Amin Almaiah6, and Marwan Albahar7
1Engineering Technical College, Southern Technical University, Basra, 61001, Iraq
2Information Technology Management Department, Management Technical College -Basra, Southern Technical University, Basra, 61001, Iraq
3Computer Science Department, Shatt Al-Arab University College, Basra, Iraq
4Department of Electronic Technologies, Basra Technical Institute, Southern Technical University, Basra, 61001, Iraq
5College of Engineering, Al-Ayen University, Thi-Qar, Iraq
6King Abdullah the II IT School, Department of Computer Science, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
7College of Engineering and Computing in Al-Lith Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia
Email: zainab.yousif@stu.edu.iq (Z.Y.A.T.); Mohanad.a.abdulrazaq@stu.edu.iq (M.A.A.D.A.); Jalal.altmemi@stu.edu.iq (J.M.H.A.); karar.ali@sa-uc.edu.iq (K.A.A.); mahmood.alshareedah@stu.edu.iq (M.A.A-S.); m.almaiah@ju.edu.jo (M.AA.); Mobaydat@kfu.edu.sa (M.A.)
*Corresponding author

Manuscript received September 15, 2025; revised October 24, 2025; accepted November 4, 2025; published March 24, 2026.

Abstract—Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) requires lightweight and scalable authentication mechanisms to ensure that high-speed mobile nodes can successfully communicate with each other in a safe and reliable manner. Classic Certificateless Aggregate Signature (CLAS) cannot solve quantum-era problems and easily allows for key forgeries since they rely on classical cryptographic assumptions as the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem (ECDLP). This paper presents a Post-Quantum Certificateless Aggregate Signature (PQ-CLAS) scheme to provide a quantum-resistant level of security and add robust protection against rogue keys and even a maliciously operated Key Generation Center (KGC) attack. Security analysis shows that the proposed scheme combines double verification with lightweight computation. The results are impervious to impersonation attacks, replay attacks, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Experimental figures show that the average signature time for PQ-CLAS is 1.25 ms, verification time is 2.85 ms. By contrast with aggregate verification of 100 vehicles taking 302 ms and with a communication overhead per message of 1440 bits, the results are approximately 18% better than recent existing work (2022). This demonstrates that PQ-CLAS can provide an efficient, scalable, and quantum-resistant hardware authentication framework for real-time Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks.

Keywords—Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs), postquantum cryptography, certificateless aggregate signature, rogue-key attack, RLWE, lattice-based cryptography, authentication, conditional privacy, 5G/6G vehicular networks, quantum-resilient security

Cite: Zainab Y. Al Tmari, Mohanad Ahmed Abdulrazzaq Diwan Alzamili, Jalal M. H. Altmemi, Karrar Ali Abdullah, Mahmood A. Al-Shareeda, Mohammed Amin Almaiah, and Marwan Albahar, “A Post-Quantum Certificateless Aggregate Signature Scheme for VANETs Resilient to Rogue-Key Attacks," Journal of Communications, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 233-244, 2026.


Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

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