16,137 research outputs found
A Survey on Wireless Sensor Network Security
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in
the research community due their wide range of applications. Due to distributed
nature of these networks and their deployment in remote areas, these networks
are vulnerable to numerous security threats that can adversely affect their
proper functioning. This problem is more critical if the network is deployed
for some mission-critical applications such as in a tactical battlefield.
Random failure of nodes is also very likely in real-life deployment scenarios.
Due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes, traditional security
mechanisms with large overhead of computation and communication are infeasible
in WSNs. Security in sensor networks is, therefore, a particularly challenging
task. This paper discusses the current state of the art in security mechanisms
for WSNs. Various types of attacks are discussed and their countermeasures
presented. A brief discussion on the future direction of research in WSN
security is also included.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
An Outline of Security in Wireless Sensor Networks: Threats, Countermeasures and Implementations
With the expansion of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the need for securing
the data flow through these networks is increasing. These sensor networks allow
for easy-to-apply and flexible installations which have enabled them to be used
for numerous applications. Due to these properties, they face distinct
information security threats. Security of the data flowing through across
networks provides the researchers with an interesting and intriguing potential
for research. Design of these networks to ensure the protection of data faces
the constraints of limited power and processing resources. We provide the
basics of wireless sensor network security to help the researchers and
engineers in better understanding of this applications field. In this chapter,
we will provide the basics of information security with special emphasis on
WSNs. The chapter will also give an overview of the information security
requirements in these networks. Threats to the security of data in WSNs and
some of their counter measures are also presented
Solutions and Tools for Secure Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks
Secure communication is considered a vital requirement in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications. Such a requirement embraces different aspects, including confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of exchanged information, proper management of security material, and effective prevention and reaction against security threats and attacks. However, WSNs are mainly composed of resource-constrained devices. That is, network nodes feature reduced capabilities, especially in terms of memory storage, computing power, transmission rate, and energy availability.
As a consequence, assuring secure communication in WSNs results to be more difficult than in other kinds of network. In fact, trading effectiveness of adopted solutions with their efficiency becomes far more important. In addition, specific device classes or technologies may require to design ad hoc security solutions. Also, it is necessary to efficiently manage security material, and dynamically cope with changes of security requirements. Finally, security threats and countermeasures have to be carefully considered since from the network design phase.
This Ph.D. dissertion considers secure communication in WSNs, and provides the following contributions. First, we provide a performance evaluation of IEEE 802.15.4 security services. Then, we focus on the ZigBee technology and its security services, and propose possible solutions to some deficiencies and inefficiencies. Second, we present HISS, a highly scalable and efficient key management scheme, able to contrast collusion attacks while displaying a graceful degradation of performance. Third, we present STaR, a software component for WSNs that secures multiple traffic flows at the same time. It is transparent to the application, and provides runtime reconfigurability, thus coping with dynamic changes of security requirements. Finally, we describe ASF, our attack simulation framework for WSNs. Such a tool helps network designers to quantitatively evaluate effects of security attacks, produce an attack ranking based on their severity, and thus select the most appropriate countermeasures
A Key Establishment Scheme for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks Using Post-Deployment Knowledge
Establishment of pairwise keys between sensor nodes in a sensor network is a
difficult problem due to resource limitations of sensor nodes as well as
vulnerability to physical captures of sensor nodes by the enemy. Public-key
cryptosystems are not much suited for most resource-constrained sensor
networks. Recently, elliptic curve cryptographic techniques show that public
key cryptosystem is also feasible for resource-constrained sensor networks.
However, most researchers accept that the symmetric key cryptosystems are
viable options for resource-constrained sensor networks. In this paper, we
first develop a basic principle to address the key pre-distribution problem in
mobile sensor networks. Then, using this developed basic principle, we propose
a scheme which takes the advantage of the post-deployment knowledge. Our scheme
is a modified version of the key prioritization technique proposed by Liu and
Ning. Our improved scheme provides reasonable network connectivity and
security. Moreover, the proposed scheme works for any deployment topology.Comment: Published in International Journal of Computer Networks &
Communications (IJCNC) Vol.3, No.4, July 201
Dynamic key ring update mechanism for mobile wireless sensor networks
Key distribution is an important issue to provide security in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Many of the key pre-distribution schemes proposed for static WSNs perform poorly when they are applied to Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs). In this paper, we propose Dynamic Key Ring Update (DKRU) mechanism for MWSNs. The aim of DKRU mechanism is to enable sensor nodes to update their key rings periodically during movement, by observing the frequent keys in their neighbors. Our mechanism can be used together with different key pre-distribution schemes and it helps to increase the performance of them. For the performance evaluation basis, we used our mechanism together with a location based key pre-distribution scheme. Our results show that DKRU mechanism increases the local and global connectivity when it is applied to MWSNs. Moreover, our mechanism does not cause a significant degradation in network resiliency
HaG: Hash graph based key predistribution scheme for multiphase wireless sensor networks
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) consist of small sensor nodes which operate until their energy reserve is depleted. These nodes are generally deployed to the environments where network lifespan is much longer than the lifetime of a node. Therefore, WSN are typically operated in a multiphase fashion, as in [1-3, 9-10], which use different key pools for nodes deployed at different generations. In multiphase WSN, new nodes are periodically deployed to the environment to ensure constant local and global network connectivity. Also, key ring of these newly deployed nodes is selected from their deployment generation key pool to improve the resiliency of WSN. In this paper, we propose a key predistribution scheme for multiphase WSN which is resilient against permanent and temporary node capture attacks. In our Hash Graph based (HaG) scheme, every generation has its own key pool which is generated using the key pool of the previous generation. This allows nodes deployed at different generations to have the ability to establish secure channels. Likewise, a captured node can only be used to obtain keys for a limited amount of successive generations. We compare the connectivity and resiliency performance of our scheme with other multiphase key predistribution schemes and show that our scheme performs better when the attack rate is low. When the attack rate is high, our scheme still has better resiliency performance inasmuch as using less key ring size compared to the existing multiphase schemes
A highly resilient and zone-based key predistribution protocol for multiphase wireless sensor networks
Pairwise key distribution among the sensor nodes is an essential problem for providing security in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The common approach for this problem is random key predistribution, which suffers from resiliency issues in case of node captures by adversaries. In the literature, the resiliency problem is addressed by zone-based deployment models that use prior deployment knowledge. Another remedy in the literature, which is for multiphase WSNs, aims to provide self-healing property via periodic deployments of sensor nodes with fresh keys over the sensor field. However, to the best of our knowledge, these two approaches have never been combined before in the literature. In this paper, we propose a zone-based key predistribution approach for multiphase WSNs. Our approach combines the best parts of these approaches and provides self-healing property with up to 9-fold more resiliency as compared to an existing scheme. Moreover, our scheme ensures almost 100% secure connectivity, which means a sensor node shares at least one key with almost all of its neighbors
Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey
This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh
network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user
privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various
possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for
WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the
security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application
layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols,
user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation
protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the
chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms
and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible
attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with
regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed,
use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved
etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management
approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly
becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open
problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed
before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the
author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are
some text overlaps with the previous submissio
- …