Monitoring-Based Key Revocation Schemes for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract:
A primary security challenge in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is the likelihood of node compromises caused by weak physical protection and hostile environments. As a result, key revocation is essential.  In this talk, I will present our recent results on key revocation problems in MANETs.  I will introduce some  novel methods for the design of fully self-organized  key revocation schemes for MANETs, which  can be directly used in any pairing-based identity based cryptography (IBC) scheme, are adaptable to certificate revocation schemes in public-key infrastructure (PKI) solutions,  and secret key-based schemes in MANETs as well.  In the first scenario, the nodes monitor their neighbors, securely propagate their observations, and revoke keys once designed threshold accusations have been received.  The solution is very efficient, completely thwart many attacks (including Sybil, impersonation and replay attacks as well as other attacks by insiders and outsiders) and is resilient to advanced attacks by colluding nodes and roaming adversaries. In the second scenario, the statistical Dirichlet multinomial model is introduced to key revocation processes.  Each node keeps track of three categories of behavior, i.e., good, suspicious and malicious behavior, which is defined and classified by an external trusted authority, and updates its knowledge about other nodes’ behavior using  3-dimension Dirichlet distribution.  It is worth to point it out that those methods have been extended to secure fully distribute peer-to-peer (P2P) network systems.

Guang Gong received a B.S. degree in mathematics in 1981, a M.S. degree in applied mathematics in 1985 and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1990, from universities in China.  She received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Rome, Italy, and spent the following year there. After return from Italy, she was promoted to an Associate Professor at the University of Electrical Science and Technology of China.  During 1995-1998, she had worked with several internationally recognized outstanding coding experts and cryptographers including Dr. Solomon W. Golomb at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She joined University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 1998, an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in September 2000.  She is a full Professor since 2004. Her research interests are in the areas of signal processing for wireless communications,   communication and network security, and lightweight cryptography.  She has authored or co-authored more than 200 technical papers and one book, co-authored with Dr. Golomb, entitled as Signal Design for Good Correlation — for Wireless Communication, Cryptography and Radar, published by Cambridge Press in 2005.  She serves/served as Associate Editors for several journals including an Associate Editor for Sequences for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, and served on a number of technical program committees of conferences.  Dr. Gong has received several awards including the Best Paper Award from the Chinese Institute of Electronics in 1984, Outstanding Doctorate Faculty Award of Sichuan Province, China, in 1991 and the Premier’s Research Excellence Award, Ontario, Canada, in 2001, and NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement Award, 2009, Canada.