Direct and indirect trust establishment in ad hoc networks by certificate distribution and verification

Trust establishment in wireless ad hoc networks is a challenge because of its unique characteristics. These include the lack of a central authority and the autonomous, dynamic nature of these networks which result in poor connectivity and routing failure. Security can be provided by a certificate based model but key management is a difficulty in wireless ad hoc networks. A key management scheme is proposed which realizes certificate distribution and verification. The key management scheme occurs in an on-demand, fully distributive, wireless ad hoc network environment, establishing trust on the routing layer exclusively. Trust and route establishment are achieved simultaneously with reduced dependency between the security and routing mechanisms. Simulations show the overhead of the proposed scheme and that it has negligible impact on network performance while providing trust establishment for the network.