An efficient group key management scheme for mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

Group key management is one of the basic building blocks in collaborative and group-oriented applications in Mobile AdHoc Networks (MANETs). Group key establishment involves creating and distributing a common secret for all group members. However, key management for a large and dynamic group is a difficult problem because of scalability and security. Modification of membership requires the group key to be refreshed to ensure backward and forward secrecy. In this paper, we propose a Simple and Efficient Group Key (SEGK) management scheme for MANETs. Group members compute the group key in a distributed manner.