The international COSPAS-SARSAT program is a satellite-based search and rescue distress alert detection and information distribution system and best known as the system that detects and locates emergency beacons activated by aircraft, ships and so on. However, the current message format of the system is not encrypted so that, if the rescue signal can be intercepted by the unintended receivers, the subsequent rescue activities can be handled in a hostile environment. So, this article concerns how to deal with the rescue signals in a secure way and proposes some adequate encryption methods and the corresponding key management.