Group-Based Secure Communication for Large- Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Achieving security in resource-constrained wireless sensor networks is a challenging research task. Many key management schemes have been developed recently to provide secure communication between source and destination in wireless sensor networks. A serious threat highlighted in all of these schemes is that of node capture attacks, where an adversary gains full control over a sensor node through direct physical access. The compromised sensor node can be an aggregator node, cluster head node or a normal sensor node. This can lead an adversary to compromise the communication of an entire sensor network which creates a high risk for data confidentiality. Solving this problem with limited resources is a major challenge. Ignoring the security issues related to data aggregation can bring large damage to a sensor network. Nonetheless data aggregation brings significant advantages in terms of reducing the amount of data transmitted between source and destination and thereby conserving energy. However data aggregation schemes are generally designed without considering the possible security consequences relating to data confidentiality. To deal with the above issues we therefore propose a novel and distinct Structure and Density Independent Group Based Key Management Protocol which forms part of our broader work looking at security issues in Wireless Sensor Networks. This protocol provides better secure communication, secure data aggregation, data confidentiality, and resilience against node capture and replication attacks. The protocol has been evaluated using different topologies both with and without group structures and compared against existing schemes. Evaluation results show a significant improvement in resilience against node capture attacks, confidentiality, memory overhead and connectivity.