Efficient Hybrid Tree Key Distribution for Secure Multicast Communication

The evolution of the Internet, multicast communications seem particularly well adapted for large scale commercial distribution applications. Key management for multicast remains an open topic in secure Communications today. Key management mainly has to do with the distribution and update of keying material during the group life. There are different key management algorithms that facilitate efficient distribution and rekeying of the group key. These protocols normally add communication overhead as well as computation overhead at the group key controller and at the group members. This work explores the various algorithms along with the performances and derives an improved method called Hybrid tree based key distribution. The proposed key generation algorithm offers a novel, scalable and efficient technique for establishing hybrid keys for sensor networks with low computational and energy requirements.