Region-Based Security Architecture for DTN

Due to the disrupted nature of intermittently connected networks, traditional security infrastructure i.e., Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) suffers difficulty in security provision. Unlike PKI, Identity Based Cryptography (IBC) does not need end-to-end connectivity to trusted third party for certificate retrieval before message transmission. It enables a sender to create a valid public key of destination entity on fly and hence successfully works with the disrupted nature of delay tolerant network (DTN). An extension of IBC namely Hierarchical IBC (HIBC) efficiently provides secure communication in large sparsely populated and intermittently connected DTN regions with security servers working in hierarchy. In the paper we have proposed HIBC-based key management architecture for challenged DTN regions with Internet working as a backbone region. We have discussed mechanisms of secure communication between two end nodes that may either belong to same or different region(s) of similar or different security architectures.