A secure multicast support framework for Mobile IP

More and more applications are relying on underlying IP multicast facility to disseminate information to several receivers simultaneously with minimum overheads. These include real time applications such as video conferencing and Internet audio as well as non real time services. Concurrently, there is a paradigm shift from wired to wireless communication. As portable computers proliferate, networks rely on a limited number of stationary hosts and aim to provide seamless connectivity to mobile hosts. Hence, there is an urgent need to integrate these two facilities together. However, there are serious security concerns that need to be addressed before one can exploit this combined facility. Security issues in multicasting such as dynamic group management are further aggravated due in the mobile environment. In this paper, we describe the security issues in multicasting and propose a secure multicast framework for Mobile IP.