Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are transforming transportation, and their development and operation depend more and more on digital twins (DTs). DTs are virtual representations of AVs that can be used to replicate and test their behavior in various settings. Nowadays, protecting privacy and safety is a major concern because the integration of these technologies has resulted in both happy and catastrophic situations. We suggest an elliptic curve cryptography (ECC)-based key agreement method for AVs and DTs in this paper. We’ll look at the key security improvements made so far, explore a number of attack methods, and assess the computational and communication costs inside the proposed framework. In addition, security analysis is used to ensure secure and efficient communication. Lastly, our findings indicate that the suggested protocol satisfies every security need compared to existing protocols.