Secure multicast in various scenarios of WirelessMAN

Multicast enables efficient large-scale content distribution and has become more and more popular in network service. Security is a critical issue for multicast because many applications require access control and privacy. This issue is more sensitive to wireless network, which is lack of physical boundaries. IEEE 802.16 is the standard for next generation wireless network, which aims to provide the last mile access for wireless metropolitan area network (WirelessMAN). Multicast is also supported in IEEE 802.16, and a multicast and broadcast rekeying algorithm (MBRA) is proposed as an optional function for secure multicast. However, this algorithm does not provide backward and forward secrecy, and is not scalable to large group. This paper reviews the above two deficiencies of MBRA and proposes a new algorithm to address them. We also propose algorithms for secure multicast in different scenarios of WirelessMAN besides its basic scheme.