Symmetric key management and distribution techniques in wireless ad hoc networks

In secure ad hoc network authorized nodes access the network based on network initialization, authentication and secure communication. Authentication forms the core in security, where nodes exchange data based on key management. Trusted Third Party (TPP) or Certificate Authority (CA) function as trust infrastructure and enable the nodes to access or leave the network. The main feature of security protocols is key management, which includes key distribution and key update. This article gives analysis of various key management and symmetric key distribution techniques in wireless ad hoc network. Master key, pair wise key and random key pre-distribution techniques are used in key management. Analytical methods confirm that for a less dense network master key is used and for a large dense network random key is used. In order to minimize the key management complexity in security protocols, symmetric key distribution is used. Key distribution techniques are classified based node attributes as local area, wide area and threshold area conditions. Analysis of various key distribution method concludes that (i) if keys are compromised in a local area, self-healing key management technique is used (ii) if keys are compromised in wide area, distributed Diffie Hellman is used and (iii) if keys are compromised in threshold area conditions, then subset of m keys are distributed in m different locations.