The Application of Threshold Secret Sharing in Key Agreement Scheme for MANETs

Designing efficient and secure key management scheme is one of the key issues in mobile ad hoc networks. In this paper, a novel group key management scheme for mobile ad hoc networks based on threshold secret sharing is proposed. The member registration and key management is completed by registration center and a group of key generation centers respectively, which can alleviate the system burden and avoid problem of the single point of failure. By utilizing threshold secret sharing scheme, the member´s key can be conducted by any subgroup of cooperated key generation centers, which enhances the robustness and scalability of system. The detailed analysis of the proposed scheme shows that it satisfies the security requirements of key management and is efficient in computation and storage cost of the members.