Improvements to data transportation security in wireless sensor networks

Ekonomou, E

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are computer networks consisting of miniaturised
electronic devices that aim to gather and report information about their environment. The
devices are limited in computational, data storage and communication ability. Furthermore,
the devices communicate via a wireless, unregulated medium and usually operate on finite
power sources. Security in Wireless Sensor Networks is the research area that seeks to
provide adequate and energy-efficient security mechanisms for WSNs. Such provision is
required in order to increase their range of possible applications and allow them to be
deployed in critical and valuable environments. Existing security mechanisms for larger
computer networks are inappropriate since they were not designed for the resourceconstrained
environment of WSNs. There are some purpose-built solutions but this research
has found potential security or efficiency problems with each of them.
This thesis contributes SecRose, a security mechanism for the data-transportation layer of
Wireless Sensor Networks. The solution attempts to provide higher level of security than
currently provided, without introduction of significant energy overheads and by retaining
backwards compatibility. SecRose achieves its security objectives by introducing a number of
innovations and improvements.
SecRose innovates in the provision of freshness and semantic security by altering the secret
cryptographic keys. The process is managed at the transportation level by the basic key
management mechanism. The integrity and safety of the key-changing operation is achieved
by authenticating all packets and their acknowledgements. This behaviour contrasts with other
proposals, which are based on openly transmitted Initialisation Vectors, and allows SecRose
to provide better security than most of them, including TinySec, the accepted standard.
In addition, measurements show that SecRose provides better energy-efficiency than other
proposals. In particular, the solution requires less energy than TinySec in all cases and it can
even be more efficient than the base Operating System, the TinyOS, which does not provide
any security at all.

Citation

Ekonomou, E. Improvements to data transportation security in wireless sensor networks. (Thesis). Salford : University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2010