A Dynamic and Distributed Key Management Scheme for MANETs

Abstract

Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET) is a collection of autonomous nodes that communicate with each other by forming a single-hop or, multi-hop wireless network and by maintaining connectivity in a decentralized manner. The network topology is dynamic, because the connectivity among the nodes varies with itinerant, quitting and joining nodes. In comparison with fixed networks, some new security issues have arisen with the introduction of MANETs. In secure ad hoc network authorized nodes access the network based on network initialization, authentication and secure communication. Authentication forms the core in security, where nodes exchange data based on key management. Certificate Authority (CA) function as trust infrastructure and enable the nodes to access or leave the network. The main feature of security protocols is key management, which includes key distribution and key update. The design of key management mechanisms for Manets is a particularly complex issue, because the lack of an infrastructure, shared wireless medium, stringent resource constraints and highly dynamic topology. In this work, we propose an enhanced solution for ad hoc key management based on the performance, the trust and the density of nodes. This solution manage cryptographic keys in a dynamic and distributed way. This paper sheds light on the key management algorithm for the standard OLSR protocol. Our objective is to distribute the certification authority functions for a dynamic number of nodes that will serve for keys exchange. The selection of CA is based on the node’s performance, i.e, the node that has the minimum requirement to act as CA will play this role, the solution takes into account the node’s trust which represent the value of cooperation of nodes and the node density which represent the number of node’s neighbors Analysis and simulation results are used to show the performance of our solution compared with other solution in the literature.
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