Fully Distributed Public Key Management through Digital Signature Chains for Delay and Disrupt Tolerant Networks
Diogo de Andrade, Luiz Carlos Pessoa Albini · 2016
Security solutions are not easily adapted to the DTN paradigm, for example, traditional key management solutions cannot be applied in such environments. A key management scheme for DTNs must consider the dynamic topology, be self-organized and distributed and be effective in the presence of intermittent connections. There are just a few key management scheme for DTNs. Nevertheless, all of them have serious issues. They generate a huge overhead, have a single point of failure, are centralized or do not provide any security against very simple attacks. This work introduces a new key management scheme for DTNs based on chains of digital signatures (DSC-KM - Digital Signature Chains Key Management Scheme). It is decentralized, fully distributed, and does not have a single point of failure. It allows nodes to leave and joint the network at any time, works in the presence of intermittent connections, has a very small communication and memory overhead. It is based on chains of digital signatures and on a very simple chain exchange mechanism. According to simulation results, it is able to correctly and securely disseminate all certificates through the network in a short period, while maintaining the size of the chains very small. Moreover, it is able to resist to several attacks to the key management infrastructure.