18 research outputs found
SDACQ: Secure Data Aggregation for Coexisting Queries in Wireless Sensor Networks
Wireless Sensor Network consists of sensor nodes that are constrained in energy and other resources and is vulnerable to security attacks since the inherent nature of communication is broadcast. In order to reduce the energy consumption it is necessary to optimize the number of packets transmitted. In addition the data has to be encrypted to withstand security attacks. We propose Secure Data Aggregation for Coexisting Queries (SDACQ) in Wireless Sensor Networks that allows parallel coexisting aggregate queries from the sink to be disseminated in an authenticated manner and aggregate the data belonging to coexisting queries into a single packet. The cluster heads aggregate the encrypted data from sensor nodes using additively homomorphic encryption. Thus SDACQ provides secure data aggregation by combining authenticated query propagation with homomorphic encryption at low energy consumption. Simulation results shows that SDACQ provides better performance than other state of the art algorithms
DARE: evaluating Data Accuracy using node REputation
Typical wireless sensor networks (WSNs) applications are characterized by a certain number of different requirements such as: data accuracy, localization, reputation, security, and confidentiality. Moreover, being often battery powered, WSNs face the challenge of ensuring privacy and security despite power consumption limitations. When the application scenario allows their use, data aggregation techniques can significantly reduce the amount of data exchanged over the wireless link at the price of an increased computational complexity and the potential exposition to data integrity risks in the presence of malicious nodes. In this paper, we propose DARE, an hybrid architecture combining WSNs with the wireless mesh networking paradigm in order to provide secure data aggregation and node reputation in WSNs. Finally, the use of a secure verifiable multilateration technique allows the network to retain the trustworthiness of aggregated data even in the presence of malicious node. Extensive performance evaluations carried out using simulations as well as a real-world prototype implementation, show that DARE can effectively reduce the amount of data exchanged over the wireless medium delivering up to 50% battery lifetime improvement to the wireless sensors
Improving the Efficiency of Homomorphic Encryption Schemes
In this dissertation, we explore different approaches to practical homomorphic encryption schemes. For partial homomorphic encryption schemes, we observe that the versatility is the main bottleneck. To solve this problem, we propose general approaches to improve versatility of them by either extending the range of supported circuits or extending the message space. These general approaches can be applied to a wide range of partial HE schemes and greatly increase the number of applications that they support. For fully homomorphic encryption schemes, the slow running speed and the large ciphertext are the main challenges. Therefore, we propose efficient implementations as well as methods to compress the ciphertext. In detail, the Gentry Halevi FHE scheme and the LTV FHE scheme are implemented and the resulting performance shows significant improvement over previous works. For ciphertext compression, the concept of scheme conversion is proposed. Given a scheme converter, we can convert between schemes with compact ciphertext for communication and homomorphic schemes for computation
Improving Resilience Against Node Capture Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks Using ICmetrics
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have the potential of being employed in a variety of applications ranging from battlefield surveillance to everyday applications such as smart homes and patient monitoring. Security is a major challenge that all applications based on WSNs are facing nowadays. Firstly, due to the wireless nature of WSNs, and secondly due to their ability to operate in unattended environments makes them even more vulnerable to various sorts of attacks. Among these attacks is node capture attack in WSNs, whose threat severity can range from a single node being compromised in the network to the whole network being compromised as a result of that single node compromise. In this paper, we propose the use of ICMetric technology to provide resilience against node compromise in WSN. ICmetrics generates the security attributes of the sensor node based on measurable hardware and software characteristics of the integrated circuit. These properties of ICmetrics can help safeguard WSNs from various node capture attacks
Energy efficient clustering and secure data aggregation in wireless sensor networks
Communication consumes the majority of a wireless sensor network\u27s limited energy. There are several ways to reduce the communication cost. Two approaches used in this work are clustering and in-network aggregation. The choice of a cluster head within each cluster is important because cluster heads use additional energy for their responsibilities and that burden needs to be carefully distributed. We introduce the energy constrained minimum dominating set (ECDS) to model the problem of optimally choosing cluster heads in the presence of energy constraints. We show its applicability to sensor networks and give an approximation algorithm of O(log n) for solving the ECDS problem. We propose a distributed algorithm for the constrained dominating set which runs in O(log n log [triangle]) rounds with high probability. We show experimentally that the distributed algorithm performs well in terms of energy usage, node lifetime, and clustering time and thus is very suitable for wireless sensor networks. Using aggregation in wireless sensor networks is another way to reduce the overall communication cost. However, changes in security are necessary when in- network aggregation is applied. Traditional end-to-end security is not suitable for use with in-network aggregation. A corrupted sensor has access to the intermediate data and can falsify results. Additively homomorphic encryption allows for aggregation of encrypted values, with the result being the same as the result as if unencrypted data were aggregated. Using public key cryptography, digital signatures can be used to achieve integrity. We propose a new algorithm using homomorphic encryption and additive digital signatures to achieve confidentiality, integrity and availability for in- network aggregation in wireless sensor networks. We prove that our digital signature algorithm which is based on Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is at least as secure as ECDSA. Even without in-network aggregation, security is a challenge in wireless sensor networks. In wireless sensor networks, not all messages need to be secured with the same level of encryption. We propose a new algorithm which provides adequate levels of security while providing much higher availablility [sic] than other security protocols. Our approach uses similar amounts of energy as a network without security --Abstract, page iv