Security and group management in IP Multicast

Multicast is becoming an increasingly important transmission method on the Internet, since when deployed it uses resources more efficiently and enables scalable many-to-many communication. Providing security services, such as traffic confidentiality, for multicast communication is particularly problematic. The original multicast model implies anonymity for both sender and receiver, which is one of the problems. This document describes the problem areas, focusing on a one-to-many scenario, and the implemented prototype. It employs a client/server policy framework in order to provide/enforce access control to restricted multicast addresses. By denying unauthorized hosts access as well as disconnecting members if necessary, the implementation is shown to efficiently enforce access control for multicast group communication. When comparing the implemented solution to other solution ideas, it was found less message-intensive, although it implies changes in the routers, which alters the multicast model.Validerat; 20101217 (root