A Survey of Multicast Security Issues and Architectures

Abstract : This paper addresses issues relevant to implementing security for IP multicast networks. These issues are of importance to application developers wishing to implement security services for their multicast applications. The paper investigates the steps required to create a secure multicast session including issues of group membership and key distribution. A common simple criteria is established that can be used to evaluate multicast keying architectures. The criteria focuses on the efficiency and scalability of the keying solution. Using this criteria, several keying architectures are evaluated and compared to determine their strengths and weaknesses.