Key distribution and update for secure inter-group multicast communication

Group communication has become an important component in wireless networks. In this paper, we focus on the environments in which multiple groups coexist in the system, and both intra and inter group multicast traffic must be protected by secret keys. We propose a mechanism that integrates polynomials with flat tables to achieve personal key share distribution and efficient key refreshment during group changes. The proposed mechanism distributes keys via true broadcast. The contributions of the research include: (1) By switching from asymmetric algorithms to symmetric encryption methods, the proposed mechanism avoids heavy computation, and improves the processing efficiency of multicast traffic and the power usage at the wireless nodes. The group managers do not have to generate public-private key pairs when the group member changes. (2) It becomes more difficult for an attacker to impersonate another node since personal key shares are adopted. The additional storage overhead at the w...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: SASN
• Authors: Weichao Wang, Bharat K. Bhargava
• Keywords: Group Member Changes, Key Refreshment, Personal Key Shares, SASN 2005