Key management based on hierarchical secret sharing in ad-hoc networks

Abstract

A hierarchical key sharing model in ad-hoc is presented and a key management protocol based on this model is designed. Nodes were divided into two parts in the network, server nodes and ordinary nodes. The shares hold by server nodes include more information than ordinary ones. Key reconstruction is implemented by collaboration of k nodes(including at least k 1 server nodes). Key share distribution, key reconstruction, key share refreshing and recovery are discussed in this paper. The presented protocols improve the availability and enhance the security compared with the existing partially and fully distributed schemes respectively. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.