Secure Key Exchange and Encryption Mechanism for Group Communication in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Secured communication in ad hoc wireless networks is primarily important, because the communication signals are openly available as they propagate through air and are more susceptible to attacks ranging from passive eavesdropping to active interfering. The lack of any central coordination and shared wireless medium makes them more vulnerable to attacks than wired networks. Nodes act both as hosts and routers and are interconnected by Multi- hop communication path for forwarding and receiving packets to/from other nodes. The objective of this paper is to propose a key exchange and encryption mechanism that aims to use the MAC address as an additional parameter as the message specific key[to encrypt]and forward data among the nodes. The nodes are organized in spanning tree fashion, as they avoid forming cycles and exchange of key occurs only with authenticated neighbors in ad hoc networks, where nodes join or leave the network dynamically.