Patent ID: 8306229

Claim:
A method for unicast key management in a network, comprising: constructing a key negotiation request packet and sending the key negotiation request packet to a base station, by a mobile station, wherein the key negotiation request packet comprises an Authority Key Identifier AKID, a random number selected by the mobile station N MS , and a Message Integrity Code MIC, and wherein a value of the Message Integrity Code MIC is calculated from an integrity check key deduced from an authority key AK corresponding to the AKID; constructing a key negotiation response packet on receiving the key negotiation request packet and sending the key negotiation response packet to the mobile station, by the base station, wherein the key negotiation response packet comprises: the random number N MS selected by the mobile station, a random number N BS selected by the base station, a cipher text E EK (TEKM) of a Traffic Encryption Key Material TEKM which is selected by the base station and encrypted with a key encryption key deduced from the authority key AK corresponding to the Authority Key Identifier AKID, and a Message Integrity Code MIC having a value calculated from an integrity check key deduced from the TEKM, N MS and N BS ; and on receiving the key negotiation response packet, decrypting the key negotiation response packet with the key encryption key deduced from the authority key corresponding to the Authority Key Identifier AKID to obtain the Traffic Encryption Key Material TEKM, deducing a session encryption key and an integrity check key by utilizing the random numbers selected by the base station and the mobile station, and constructing a key negotiation acknowledgement packet, by the mobile station.