Survivable Public-Key Management for Self-Organized Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Resumo Cryptographic techniques are at the center of security solutions for wireless ad hoc networks. Public key infrastructures (PKIs) are essential for their efficient operation. However, the fully distributed organization of these networks makes a challenge to design PKIs. Changes in network paradigms and the increasing dependency on technology require more dependable and sur-vivable PKIs. This paper presents a survivable PKI whose goal is to allow its operation even in face of attacks or intrusions. The proposed PKI is based on the SAMNAR architecture in which an adaptive cooperation among preventive , reactive and tolerant defense lines is used to achieve survivability. The PKI employs also different evidences to prove the liability of users for their keys as well as social relationships for helping public key exchanges. Analytical and simulation results show the improvements attained by our proposal in terms of effectiveness and survivability to different attacks.