A cluster-based key establishment protocol for wireless mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), due to their lack of physical infrastructures or centralized online authorities, pose a number of security challenges. Traditional network authentication solutions rely on centralized trusted third party servers or certificate authorities. However, ad hoc networks are infrastructure-less, and there is no centralized server for key establishment. Hence, traditional solutions do not meet the requirements of MANETs. In this paper, a key establishment protocol for mobile ad hoc networks is proposed which does not require any centralized support. The mechanism is built using the well-known technique of threshold secret sharing scheme and network clustering. This protocol is robust and secure against a collusion of up to a certain number of nodes and is well adapted with node movements. Due to use of clustering, the imposed overhead is very low compared with other similar key establishment protocols. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.