A Load Balancing Multi-path Secure Routing Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Lifetime optimization and security are two important design issues for WSNs with nonreplenishable energy resources. Routing protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are susceptible to a number of attacks depending on the nature of the protocol, its application, and the environment in which the protocol is intended to be used. Routing protocols that do not take the malicious attacks into account can not be easily temper proofed. The longevity of WSNs is a crucial concern that significantly influences their applicability in a specific context. In this paper, we present a Load Balancing Multi-path Secure Routing (LBMSR) protocol to address these two issues concurrently through balanced energy consumption and one-way hash key chain and symmetric key cryptography. LBMSR is designed with two configurable parameters, load balance control and security level. Load balance is used to avoid the problem of energy consuming imbalance and the formation of energy holes. Security level is designed to determine the probabilistic distribution of the random walking that provides routing security. Simulation results and security analyses show that the proposed algorithm can provide excellent balance between routing efficiency and energy consumption while preventing routing attacks.