A secure hierarchical key management scheme in mobile ad hoc networks

In order to insure the security of communication in MANETs (Mobile ad hoc networks), a secure hierarchical key management scheme (HKMS) in MANETs was proposed. The real procedures were as follows. Firstly, in order to make the management of group structure much easier, a two-layer key management scheme was introduced using the multi-layer structure model. This scheme suggests encrypting a packet twice with session keys between nodes and group keys respectively to improve the security of communication in MANETs. Secondly, due to the frequent changes of the network's topology, it is complex to maintain a group structure, the group maintenance on the view of a node's join and leave was discussed. Then the scheme's security on forward and backward security were analyzed, The results show that HKMS has lower requirement of node storage ability and higher implementation efficiency when nodes join or leave the MANNETs, and it also simplifies the group management and maintenance and reduces the key redistribution cost.