Construction of a secure and efficient content key distribution framework for DRM systems

Recent advances in networks and digital technology have provided many user-friendly environments such as telemedicine, e-banking, e-content, and e-commerce. It has revolutionized the multimedia industry and made it accessible anytime and anywhere. However, its limitation also appeared in digital content piracy, which is more prevalent nowadays. Digital rights management (DRM) systems were developed to control the illegal spreading of digital content. Protocols are being developed to enable effective and secure communication in DRM systems. As security and efficiency are essential parameters, the approach should be two birds with one stone; i.e., the protocol should achieve efficiency and security together. Our investigation identified that secure mechanisms either have increased computation/communication overhead or fail to meet specified security criteria when discussing efficient content key delivery mechanisms. So, an efficient protocol design with the right security attributes is required. We have worked on designing a content delivery mechanism keeping in mind the desirable attribute of security and without decreasing overhead. The suggested solution targets “two birds with one stone.” We proved the security of the scheme in the random oracle model. We verify the security against active attacks using the formal simulation tool AVISPA. Detailed analysis is performed for the evaluation of computational and communication overhead. The comparative study is also presented to understand the gains in efficiency and security.