A novel key distribution scheme for securing satellite IP multicast

How to improve the efficiency of key distribution is one of the emphases in the research area of satellite IP multicast networks in recent years. This paper presents a novel framework based on layered principle. This scheme divides original monolayer multicast key distribution structure into two layer, and makes rekeying modification happen only on its encapsulated individual group layer. A modified LKH based on member behavior activity is also proposed to decreases the amount of key update information transmission. So, this scheme can realize rapid rekeying by decreasing message transmission amount via satellite links and saving limited bandwidth resources, so as to provide significant performance gain for satellite multicast system. The simulation curves indicate that, compared with monolayer LKH mechanism in satellite multicast, our proposal is definitely advantageous in the condition of frequent join-leave, especially when the quantity of join member and leave member are about equal. So, it is concluded that the proposed key distribution scheme can provide scalability and high performance for large dynamic satellite multicast.