International Journal of Enterprise Computing and Business Systems

A typical Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of a sink node sometimes referred to as a Base Station and a number of small wireless sensor nodes. The base station is assumed to be secure with unlimited available energy while the sensor nodes are assumed to be unsecured with limited available energy. The sensor nodes monitor a geographical area and collect sensory information. Sensory information is communicated to the Base Station through Wireless hop by hop transmissions. Advances in electronics and wireless communication technologies have enabled the development of large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs). There are huge applications for wireless sensor networks, and security is vital for many of them. However, WSNs suffer from many constraints, including low computation capability, small memory, limited energy resources, susceptibility to physical capture, and the lack of infrastructure, which impose unique security challenges and make innovative approaches desirable. In this paper we present a survey of security issues in WSNs, address the state of the art in research on sensor network security, and present some future directions for research.