A forward authentication key management scheme for heterogeneous sensor networks

  • Authors:
  • Jen-Yan Huang;I-En Liao;Hao-Wen Tang

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

  • Venue:
  • EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking - Special issue on security and resilience for smart devices and applications
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Key encryption technology is a basic technique for protecting the secrecy of transmitted data among sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks. However, sensor nodes are inherently limited by insufficient hardware resources such as memory capacity and battery lifetime. As a result, few current key management schemes are appropriate for wireless sensor networks. This paper proposes a new key management method that uses dynamic key management schemes for heterogeneous sensor networks. The proposed scheme loads a hash function into the base station, cluster heads, and sensor nodes. The cluster heads and sensor nodes then generate their own keychains to provide forward authentication in case of key changes, security breaches, key changes due to security breaches. The cluster heads and sensor nodes establish pairwise keys to ensure transmission secrecy. The proposed scheme decreases the number of keys required for sensor nodes and cluster heads and is robust to the following attacks: guessing attacks, replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, node capture attacks, and denial-of-service attacks.