Securing Cluster-Based Ad Hoc Networks with Distributed Authorities

In this paper, we address key management in cluster-based mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Ensuring secure communication in an ad hoc network is extremely challenging because of the dynamic nature of the network and the lack of centralized management. For this reason, key management is particularly difficult to implement in such networks. We present a fully-distributed ID-based multiple secrets key management scheme (IMKM). This scheme is implemented via a combination of ID-based multiple secrets and threshold cryptography. It eliminates the need for certificate-based authenticated public-key distribution and provides an efficient mechanism for key update and key revocation schemes, which leads to more suitable, economic, adaptable, scalable, and autonomous key management for mobile ad hoc networks.