Towards integrating key distribution with entity authentication for efficient, scalable and secure group communication in MANETs

We focus on the design of key management (KM) schemes tailored for the environment of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). A MANET is a collection of wireless mobile nodes, communicating among themselves over possibly multi-hop paths, without the help of any infrastructure such as base stations or access points. The fact that no central authorization entity is assumed at all times for all nodes makes the task of network operations more difficult and indicates the need for distributed algorithms to provide the functions of centralized entities. KM ensures communication security among nodes and the capability of their cooperation as a secure group. It consists of key generation, user authentication and key distribution services. In this work we address key distribution, group key generation, entity authentication: we emphasize that entity authentication should be designed with key distribution algorithms in mind and vice versa, to achieve efficient and scalable KM schemes for MANETs. We present an entity authentication scheme based on the Merkle Tree algorithm, applied on a key generation protocol recently developed - MOT- to produce an efficient, scalable and secure KM scheme.