Group key management scheme based on refined key link tree

Abstract

A group key management scheme based on refined key link tree (RKLT) was proposed which is suitable for hierarchical wireless sensor networks. It incorporates dirty key path into the key link tree. By delaying key update operations in dirty key paths, the number of duplicate key update messages for auxiliary nodes can be reduced, which also brings down the energy cost. The experiments show that RKLT scheme requires fewer rekeying messages than those in the existing group key management schemes.