Analysis of the various key management algorithms and new proposal in the secure multicast communications

Abstract: With the evolution of the Internet, multicast communications seem particularly well adapted for large scale commercial distribution applications, for example, the pay TV channels and secure videoconferencing. 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. Several key tree based approach has been proposed by various authors to create and distribute the multicast group key in effective manner. 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 paper explores the various algorithms along with the performances and derives an improved method.