Distributed Certification Authority for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks - A Dynamic Approach.
Sanjay Raghani, Durga Toshniwal · 2007
A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is an infrastructureless network of wireless mobile nodes that cooperate among each other to maintain connectivity of the network. In comparison to wired networks, securing a MANET is more difficult and challenging. One of the effective ways of providing security in MANETs is by using Public Key Cryptography and Certificates. Certificates are issued by a trusted entity known as Certification Authority (CA). In order to provide certification service in MANETs, researchers have proposed the design of a distributed CA based on threshold cryptography. With a distributed CA, nodes obtain certification service from a coalition of threshold number of nodes in the network. In the design of distributed CA that we follow, nodes identify a coalition within their one-hop neighbors. With a distributed CA, when the number of nodes in the network reduces, number of neighbors for nodes also reduces resulting in substantial increase in the certification service delays. In this paper we propose the design of a distributed CA which follows dynamic approach to solve the above problem using a suite of network monitoring protocols. The proposed design is based on the observation that when the number of nodes in the network reduces, the delays involved in obtaining certificates can be reduced by dynamically varying the threshold value. 1.