A Secured Authentication Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks Using Elliptic Curves Cryptography

User authentication is a crucial service in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that is becoming increasingly common in WSNs because wireless sensor nodes are typically deployed in an unattended environment, leaving them open to possible hostile network attack. Because wireless sensor nodes are limited in computing power, data storage and communication capabilities, any user authentication protocol must be designed to operate efficiently in a resource constrained environment. In this paper, we review several proposed WSN user authentication protocols, with a detailed review of the M.L Das protocol and a cryptanalysis of Das’ protocol that shows several security weaknesses. Furthermore, this paper proposes an ECC-based user authentication protocol that resolves these weaknesses. According to our analysis of security of the ECC-based protocol, it is suitable for applications with higher security requirements. Finally, we present a comparison of security, computation, and communication costs and performances for the proposed protocols. The ECC-based protocol is shown to be suitable for higher security WSNs

Analysis and comparison of security protocols in wireless sensor networks

Abstract-Wireless sensor networks are widely used in several application domains thanks to their data acquisition and processing capabilities and their decentralized and self-organizing nature. A widely distributed monitoring system is typically characterized by different security requirements that should be addressed by means of specific security protocols and architectures. Indeed, security solutions should be properly designed as they could have a strong impact on the overall performances. In this paper, we focus our attention on security problems related to the data exchange between sensor nodes and evaluate the performances of two different cryptosystems used to guarantee confidentiality, integrity and authentication requirements

S-PkSec: an asymmetric key based security management scheme for sensor network operation

This paper proposes a public key based management scheme for secure sensor network operation namely S-PkSec (Public Key Based Security for Sensor Networks) and emphasizes detailed comparison with some similar type of schemes. Although there was a wide held belief of the incompatibility of public key cryptographic (PKC) schemes for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), some recent works have shown that, PKC or asymmetric key based schemes could be implemented for such networks in some ways. The major challenge of employing a PKC scheme in sensor network is posed by the limitations of resources of the tiny sensors. Considering this feature of the sensors, we enhance our previous work [1] with some effective comparisons and energy analysis with other two established asymmetric key based protocols. S-PkSec comprises basically of two parts; a key handshaking scheme based on simple linear operations and the derivation of decryption key by a receiver node. S-PkSec allows both base-station-to-node or node-to-base-station secure communications, and node-to-node secure communications. Analysis and simulation results show that, our proposed architecture ensures a good level of security for communications in the network and could effectively be implemented using the limited computation, memory and energy budgets of the current generation sensor nodes

ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ В БЕЗДРОТОВИХ СЕНСОРНИХ МЕРЕЖАХ

The problem of information security in wireless sensor networks is considered in this paper. An analysis of existing recommendations for information security in wireless sensor networks. It was found that one of the key problems of information security is the hardware limitations of the sensor nodes of the network. It is substantiated that the use of more complex cryptographic protection mechanisms will increase the load on the network. Safety requirements and their description are given. The main groups and types of information security threats in wireless sensor networks are considered. The classification of attacks and protection of wireless sensor networks according to the OSI model is presented. The existing solutions for information security are considered and analyzed. The shortcomings and vulnerabilities of the considered solutions are revealed. The method of public key cryptography is considered, the main advantages and disadvantages of this method are revealed. The analysis and comparison of ECC and RSA encryption methods are carried out. It is substantiated that the use of ECC in wireless sensor networks is more efficient than RSA. The method of cryptography with a symmetric key is considered, the main advantages and disadvantages of this method are indicated. It was found that cryptographic methods using a symmetric key are more priority for use in wireless sensor networks. Cryptographic key management protocols in wireless sensor networks are considered. The classification of key management protocols is given. Secure routing protocols are considered. The classification of secure routing protocols is given. Methods of secure data aggregation are considered. Contradictions between the requirements for confidentiality and data aggregation have been revealed. The method of intrusion detection is considered, the main advantages and disadvantages of this method are revealed. The results of this work should be used in the design of wireless sensor networks.У даній роботі розглянута проблема забезпечення інформаційної безпеки в бездротових сенсорних мережах. Проведено аналіз існуючих рекомендацій по забезпеченню інформаційної безпеки в бездротових сенсорних мережах. Виявлено, що одна з ключових проблем забезпечення інформаційної безпеки полягає в апаратних обмеженнях сенсорних вузлів мережі. Обґрунтовано, що використання більш складних криптографічних механізмів захисту викличе збільшення навантаження на мережу. Наведено вимоги для забезпечення безпеки та їх опис. Розглянуто основні групи і типи загроз інформаційної безпеки в бездротових сенсорних мережах. Представлено класифікацію атак і захисту бездротових сенсорних мереж згідно моделі OSI. Розглянуто і проаналізовано існуючі рішення по забезпеченню інформаційної безпеки. Виявлено недоліки та вразливості розглянутих рішень. Розглянуто метод криптографії з відкритим ключем, виявлені основні переваги та недоліки даного методу. Проведено аналіз та порівняння методів шифрування ECC і RSA. Обгрунтовано, що використання ECC в бездротових сенсорних мережах більш ефективно, ніж RSA. Розглянуто метод криптографії з симетричним ключем, зазначені основні переваги та недоліки даного методу. Виявлено, що криптографічні методи з використанням симетричного ключа є більш пріоритетними для використання в бездротових сенсорних мережах. Розглянуто протоколи управління криптографічними ключами в бездротових сенсорних мережах. Наведено класифікацію протоколів управління ключами. Розглянуто протоколи безпечної маршрутизації. Наведено класифікацію протоколів безпечної маршрутизації. Розглянуто методи безпечної агрегації даних. Виявлено протиріччя між вимогами до конфідиційності та агрегування даних. Розглянуто метод визначення вторгнень, виявлені основні переваги та недоліки даного методу. Результати даної роботи доцільно використовувати при проектуванні бездротових сенсорних мереж

An Energy Aware and Secure MAC Protocol for Tackling Denial of Sleep Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks which form part of the core for the Internet of Things consist of resource constrained sensors that are usually powered by batteries. Therefore, careful energy awareness is essential when working with these devices. Indeed,the introduction of security techniques such as authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data, can place higher energy load on the sensors. However, the absence of security protection c ould give room for energy drain attacks such as denial of sleep attacks which have a higher negative impact on the life span ( of the sensors than the presence of security features. This thesis, therefore, focuses on tackling denial of sleep attacks from two perspectives A security perspective and an energy efficiency perspective. The security perspective involves evaluating and ranking a number of security based techniques to curbing denial of sleep attacks. The energy efficiency perspective, on the other hand, involves exploring duty cycling and simulating three Media Access Control ( protocols Sensor MAC, Timeout MAC andTunableMAC under different network sizes and measuring different parameters such as the Received Signal Strength RSSI) and Link Quality Indicator ( Transmit power, throughput and energy efficiency Duty cycling happens to be one of the major techniques for conserving energy in wireless sensor networks and this research aims to answer questions with regards to the effect of duty cycles on the energy efficiency as well as the throughput of three duty cycle protocols Sensor MAC ( Timeout MAC ( and TunableMAC in addition to creating a novel MAC protocol that is also more resilient to denial of sleep a ttacks than existing protocols. The main contributions to knowledge from this thesis are the developed framework used for evaluation of existing denial of sleep attack solutions and the algorithms which fuel the other contribution to knowledge a newly developed protocol tested on the Castalia Simulator on the OMNET++ platform. The new protocol has been compared with existing protocols and has been found to have significant improvement in energy efficiency and also better resilience to denial of sleep at tacks Part of this research has been published Two conference publications in IEEE Explore and one workshop paper

An Authentication Protocol for Future Sensor Networks

Authentication is one of the essential security services in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for ensuring secure data sessions. Sensor node authentication ensures the confidentiality and validity of data collected by the sensor node, whereas user authentication guarantees that only legitimate users can access the sensor data. In a mobile WSN, sensor and user nodes move across the network and exchange data with multiple nodes, thus experiencing the authentication process multiple times. The integration of WSNs with Internet of Things (IoT) brings forth a new kind of WSN architecture along with stricter security requirements; for instance, a sensor node or a user node may need to establish multiple concurrent secure data sessions. With concurrent data sessions, the frequency of the re-authentication process increases in proportion to the number of concurrent connections, which makes the security issue even more challenging. The currently available authentication protocols were designed for the autonomous WSN and do not account for the above requirements. In this paper, we present a novel, lightweight and efficient key exchange and authentication protocol suite called the Secure Mobile Sensor Network (SMSN) Authentication Protocol. In the SMSN a mobile node goes through an initial authentication procedure and receives a re-authentication ticket from the base station. Later a mobile node can use this re-authentication ticket when establishing multiple data exchange sessions and/or when moving across the network. This scheme reduces the communication and computational complexity of the authentication process. We proved the strength of our protocol with rigorous security analysis and simulated the SMSN and previously proposed schemes in an automated protocol verifier tool. Finally, we compared the computational complexity and communication cost against well-known authentication protocols.Comment: This article is accepted for the publication in "Sensors" journal. 29 pages, 15 figure

A Review of the Energy Efficient and Secure Multicast Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad hoc Networks

This paper presents a thorough survey of recent work addressing energy efficient multicast routing protocols and secure multicast routing protocols in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). There are so many issues and solutions which witness the need of energy management and security in ad hoc wireless networks. The objective of a multicast routing protocol for MANETs is to support the propagation of data from a sender to all the receivers of a multicast group while trying to use the available bandwidth efficiently in the presence of frequent topology changes. Multicasting can improve the efficiency of the wireless link when sending multiple copies of messages by exploiting the inherent broadcast property of wireless transmission. Secure multicast routing plays a significant role in MANETs. However, offering energy efficient and secure multicast routing is a difficult and challenging task. In recent years, various multicast routing protocols have been proposed for MANETs. These protocols have distinguishing features and use different mechanismsComment: 15 page

MODLEACH: A Variant of LEACH for WSNs

Wireless sensor networks are appearing as an emerging need for mankind. Though, Such networks are still in research phase however, they have high potential to be applied in almost every field of life. Lots of research is done and a lot more is awaiting to be standardized. In this work, cluster based routing in wireless sensor networks is studied precisely. Further, we modify one of the most prominent wireless sensor network's routing protocol "LEACH" as modified LEACH (MODLEACH) by introducing \emph{efficient cluster head replacement scheme} and \emph{dual transmitting power levels}. Our modified LEACH, in comparison with LEACH out performs it using metrics of cluster head formation, through put and network life. Afterwards, hard and soft thresholds are implemented on modified LEACH (MODLEACH) that boast the performance even more. Finally a brief performance analysis of LEACH, Modified LEACH (MODLEACH), MODLEACH with hard threshold (MODLEACHHT) and MODLEACH with soft threshold (MODLEACHST) is undertaken considering metrics of throughput, network life and cluster head replacements.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc

Performance Evaluation of end-to-end security protocols in an Internet of Things

Wireless Sensor Networks are destined to play a fundamental role in the next-generation Internet, which will be characterized by the Machine-to-Machine paradigm, according to which, embedded devices will actively exchange information, thus enabling the development of innovative applications. It will contribute to assert the concept of Internet of Things, where end-to-end security represents a key issue. In such context, it is very important to understand which protocols are able to provide the right level of security without burdening the limited resources of constrained networks. This paper presents a performance comparison between two of the most widely used security protocols: IPSec and DTLS. We provide the analysis of their impact on the resources of embedded devices. For this purpose, we have modified existing implementations of both protocols to make them properly run on our hardware platforms, and we have performed an extensive experimental evaluation study. The achieved results are not a consequence of a classical simulation campaign, but they have been obtained in a real scenario that uses software and hardware typical of the current technological developments. Therefore, they can help network designers to identify the most appropriate secure mechanism for end-to-end IP communications involving constrained devices