Secure Multicast Key Distribution for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Many emerging applications in mobile adhoc networks involve group-oriented communication. Multicast is an efficient way of supporting group oriented applications, mainly in mobile environment with limited bandwidth and limited power. For using such applications in an adversarial environment as military, it is necessary to provide secure multicast communication. Key management is the fundamental challenge in designing secure multicast communications. In many multicast interactions, new member can join and current members can leave at any time and existing members must communicate securely using multicast key distribution within constrained energy for mobile adhoc networks. This has to overcome the challenging element of “1 affects n” problem which is due to high dynamicity of groups. Thus this paper shows the specific challenges towards multicast key management protocols for securing multicast key distribution in mobile ad hoc networks, and present relevant multicast key management protocols in mobile ad hoc networks. A comparison is done against some pertinent performance criteria.