Three-tier satellite multicast security protocol based on ECMQV and IMC methods

In this paper, we propose a new three-tier satellite multicast security protocol based on ECMQV (elliptic curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone) and IMC (improved Merkle cryptosystem). We make contribution to the satellite multicast security protocols in two major points. These are protocol architecture design and cryptographic methods aspects. Our protocol is specifically designed for multicast systems having very large number of members and highly dynamic member join leave characteristic. Our protocol minimizes the rekeying workload of satellite layers and shows high performance for many criteria using three independent key distribution layers. In addition, our protocol uses a different cryptographic method for each layer and achieves major cryptographic goals together that are not provided in implementations of some other protocols. Using ECMQV and especially IMC based methods in satellite multicast security protocols is a novel approach and has many advantages