An RSA-based algorithm for secure D2D-aided multicast delivery of multimedia services

To answer the sharp surge in the number of devices requiring the same multimedia content, an effective management of group-communications (i.e., multicast) in current fifth generation (5G) network appears urgent. Device-to-device (D2D) communications can greatly improve the performance of a multicast transmission as long as effective countermeasures are taken to the several security vulnerabilities they may be suffering. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for the secure D2D-aided delivery of multicast services that exploits the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) encryption algorithm for the protection of data transmitted in D2D. The main benefit of this approach is the possibility of delivering the required service in multicast also for D2D transmissions by means of properly selected relay nodes that work as heads of each D2D cluster. Simulation results testify to the effectiveness of the proposed solution in providing security assurance and limited resource consumption.