Security in Wireless Sensor Networks - Improving the LEAP Protocol

Wireless sensor networks are becoming significantly vital to many applications, and they were initially used by the military for surveillance purposes. One of the biggest concerns of WSNs is that they are very defenceless to security threats. Due to the fact that these networks are susceptible to hackers; it is possible for one to enter and render a network. For example, such networks may be hacked into in the military, using the system to attack friendly forces. Leap protocol offers many security benefits to WSNs. However, with much research it became apparent that LEAP only employs one base station and always assumes that it is trustworthy. It does not consist of defence against hacked or compromised base stations. In this paper, intensive research was undertaken on LEAP protocols, finding out its security drawbacks and limitations. A solution has been proposed in order to overcome the security issues faced in implementing this protocol whilst employing more than one base station. The performance of the proposed solution has been evaluated and simulated to provide a better network performance