SIKM – a smart cryptographic key management framework

Abstract

For a secure data transmission in symmetric cryptography, data are encrypted and decrypted using an identical key. The process of creating, distributing, storing, deploying, and finally revoking the symmetric keys is called key management. Many key management schemes are devised that each one is suitable for a specific range of applications. However, these schemes have some common drawbacks like the hardness of key generation and distribution, key storage, attacks, and traffic load. In this article, a key management framework is proposed, which is attack resistant and transforms the current customary key management workflow to enhance security and reduce weaknesses. The main features of the proposed framework are eliminating key storage, smart attack resistant feature, reducing multiple-times key distribution to just one-time interpreter distribution, and having short key intervals – minutely, hourly, and daily. Moreover, the key revocation process happens automatically and with no revocation call.

Keywords

• cryptographic key management
• symmetric key
• secure communications
• key exchange
• key refreshment