Secure and efficient key management in mobile ad hoc networks

In mobile ad hoc networks, due to unreliable wireless media, host mobility and lack of infrastructure, providing secure communications is a big challenge in this unique network environment. Usually cryptography techniques are used for secure communications in wired and wireless networks. The asymmetric cryptography is widely used because of its versatileness (authentication, integrity, and confidentiality) and simplicity for key distribution. However, this approach relies on a centralized framework of public key infrastructure (PKI). The symmetric approach has computation efficiency, yet it suffers from potential attacks on key agreement or key distribution. In fact, any cryptographic means is ineffective if the key management is weak. Key management is a central aspect for security in mobile ad hoc networks. In mobile ad hoc networks, the computational load and complexity for key management is strongly subject to restriction of the node´s available resources and the dynamic nature of network topology. In this paper, we propose a secure and efficient key management framework (SEKM) for mobile ad hoc networks. SEKM builds PKI by applying a secret sharing scheme and an underlying multicast server group. In SEKM, the server group creates a view of the certification authority (CA) and provides certificate update service for all nodes, including the servers themselves. A ticket scheme is introduced for efficient certificate service. In addition, an efficient server group updating scheme is proposed.