Key establishment for layered group-based Wireless Sensor Networks. (19th March 2010)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Xueping; Yang, Dengfeng; Sawhney, Rapinder
• Is Part Of: International journal of ad hoc and ubiquitous computing. Volume 5:Number 3(2010)
• Page Start: 150
• Page End: 162
• Publication Date: 2010-03-19
• Subjects: WSNs -- wireless sensor networks -- network security -- key establishment -- scalability -- group-based deployment -- wireless networks -- pairwise keys -- secure communications; Ubiquitous computing -- Periodicals; Embedded computer systems -- Periodicals; Electronic data processing -- Distributed processing -- Periodicals; Wireless communication systems -- Periodicals; Computer architecture -- Periodicals; 004.2
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1743-8225

Abstract

Establishing pairwise keys for sensors is crucial to secure communications in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Several key pre-distribution schemes have been proposed to establish pairwise keys, but they are not scalable and suffer from a dramatic degradation of security when the number of compromised sensor exceeds a threshold. In this paper, we propose a Layered Group-based Key Establishment (LGKE) scheme, in which a logic top layer ensures the scalability through an Exclusion Basic System (EBS) technique while a logic low layer adopts a group-based key preload scheme to ensure the security. The security analysis and quantitative evaluation show the superiority of LGKE with regard to scalability, resilience, robustness and communication overhead.