Cryptanalysis of an authenticated group key transfer protocol based on secret sharing

Abstract

In 2012, Sun et al. proposed an authenticated group key transfer protocol based on secret sharing instead of encryption algorithm. They claimed that their protocol provides mutual authentication to ensure that only the authorized group members can recover the right session key and all participants only need to store one secret share for all sessions. However, our analysis shows that Sun et al.'s protocol is vulnerable to outsider and insider attacks and does not provide mutual authentication. In this paper, we show a detailed analysis of flaws in Sun et al.'s protocol. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.