Patent ID: 8719564

Claim:
A method for sharing a secret key between a source node and a destination node in a multi-hop wireless communication network, the method comprising: (a) adding, by each forward intermediate node on a routing path of a secret key sharing request message transmitted from the source node to the destination node, a secret key between the forward intermediate node and a node before the forward intermediate node to the secret key sharing request message; (b) generating, by the destination node, a shared secret key between the source node and the destination node from the secret key between the forward intermediate node and the node before the forward intermediate node added in the secret key sharing request message; (c) adding, by each backward intermediate node on a routing path of a secret key sharing response message transmitted from the destination node to the source node in response to the secret key sharing request message, a secret key between the backward intermediate node and a node before it to the secret key sharing response message; and (d) generating, by the source node, the shared secret key between the destination node and the source node from the secret key between the backward intermediate node and the node before it added in the secret key sharing response message.