Efficient Star Topology based Multicast Key Management Algorithm

M M

doi:10.3844/jcssp.2012.951.956

Abstract

Problem statement: Secure group communication is very important for many applications such as internet pay sites. It provides efficient delivery of identical data to only the customers in the group. In large and dynamic multicast groups, the group keys of members have to be changed frequently whenever the member leaves or joins. A common method is to apply a symmetric key that is used to encrypt the transmitted data. The rekeying cost scales linearly with the number of members in the group and cost of the rekeying process is the main issue. The tree-based architecture is commonly used to reduce the rekeying cost in terms of storage, transmission and computation. But it usually gives extra overhead to balance the tree which is in order to achieve logarithmic rekeying cost. Approach: The main aim was to use star topology based architecture to avoid the balancing and eliminate the rekeying processes and more over it was more secured by exchanging the secret key between only server and each group member. The features of proposed algorithm were that the private key was computed by individual member. Results: The burden of server was reduced and also there was no rekeying when a member leaves the group. The secret value of leaving member was not added in the encryption and so the private value could not be obtained after decryption. Conclusion: Proposed algorithm is simple and no rekeying when a member leaves and also reduces the computation and communication complexity.

Highlights

In the modern technology world, network attacks have become more sophisticated and harder to identify the attack
A common group key is necessary for individual members in the group for secure multicast communication
If private key is computed and sent by a server to all the members the private component of members may not be used for authentication

Summary

Introduction

In the modern technology world, network attacks have become more sophisticated and harder to identify the attack. When many applications like scalable chat services and streaming video, are expected to run over the Internet, the security is necessary in computing and communication became a necessity. The internet today provides less security for privacy and authentication of multicast packets. The number of applications using multicast increases day by day and so it need secure multicast services. Multicast is an internetwork service which provides efficient delivery of data from a source to multiple receivers and improve the bandwidth efficiency of the network. A common group key is necessary for individual members in the group for secure multicast communication. In general the group key management (Peyravian et al, 1999; Rafaeli and Hutchison, 2003; Zhu and Jajodia, 2003; Kim et al, 2005; Devi and Padmavathi, 2010; Sahar et al, 2010; Abdul-Rahman et al, 2011) can be divided into three categories (a) centralized key management (b) distributed key management (c) decentralized key management

Methods

Results

Conclusion