Efficient and secure source authentication scheme for multicast user authentication

Multicast technology application has been widely utilized in broadband internet. Source authentication is one of the most needs for many multicast applications transferring real-time information such as stream video and online news. Because multicast current services provided to the group members are changed dynamically, data transferring by a group member is not used by the recipient. In order to verify the identity of the sender who sent the packet and to make sure that the data have not been tampered, an optimized source authentication scheme has been proposed to transfer the authentication information not to the next-door packet. The proposed method for multiple packets authenticates the source with a limited number of electronic signatures. The proposed method can reduce overhead compared to the method by adding a digital signature for every packet. In addition, by sending the generated electronic signature to the first packet and the last packet, it prevents the loss of consecutive packets, as well as a source authentication can be provided in real-time services.