Practical efficiency analysis of a dual mode group key management

Group key management is a fundamental building block for secure group communication. Several group key management techniques are designed to provide a common group key either in small groups, so called dynamic peer groups (DPG), or in large groups but not in both. The Multicast Internet Key Exchange (MIKE) has been introduced to address this issue. The advantage of MIKE is the integration of two key management mechanisms. The concept combines a distributed key management with a centralized one. The Key Agreement mode is suitable for the usage within small groups connected via wireless ad hoc networks (MANET) because this mode provides a fault-tolerant key provision even in the presence of process crash or connection loss of the group key manager. The centralized Key Distribution mode allows an efficient group key provision if the secure group becomes very large. This paper presents measurements of the efficiency of the MIKE concept.