A group secure key generation and transfer protocol based on ICMetrics

Abstract

Secure group communications are more prone to attacks as compared to the conventional one to one communication. Every client in a group can be seen as a single source of attack, therefore it is important to design a robust security scheme that will protect all the individual clients and hence the entire group. In this paper a novel security architecture has been presented, that provides a secure group key generation and transfer protocol that is based on ICMetrics. The salient features of the protocol include a single collaborative key generation scheme that is initiated through client authentication. Also provided is a rekeying procedure that is important in maintaining the freshness of the key and offers perfect forward secrecy. The above features are based on the use of ICMetrics to provide a security protocol that is scalable and secure. The presented protocol has been simulated for varying group population sizes using C++ and Maple. The resulting running times for various stages of the protocol have been studied.