Efficient and Secure Multicast in WirelessMAN

Abstract

Multicast delivery of data is a powerful mechanism that has strong potential in next generation networks. The increased efficiency over unicast is a definite advantage, but the use of multicast poses many security risks. Effectively adding security measures to a multicast service is an intriguing problem, especially when the service is deployed in a wireless setting. Next generation IEEE 802.16 standard WirelessMAN networks are a perfect example of this problem, and the latest draft specification of the standard includes a secure protocol solution called multicast and broadcast rekeying algorithm (MBRA). In this paper, we expose the security problems of MBRA, including non-scalability and omission of backward and forward secrecy, and propose a new approach, ELAPSE, to address these problems. We analyze the security property of ELAPSE and use Qualnet simulations to show its efficiency