Lightweight Security Protocol for WiSense based Wireless Sensor Network

📝 Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks have emerged as one of the leading technologies. These networks are designed to monitor crucial environmental parameters of humidity, temperature, wind speed, soil moisture content, UV index, sound, etc. and then transfer the required information to the base station. However, security remains the key challenge of such networks as critical data is being transferred. Most sensor nodes currently deployed have constraints on memory and processing power and hence operate without an efficient security protocol. Hereby a protocol which is lightweight and is secure for wireless sensor applications is proposed.

💡 Analysis

Wireless Sensor Networks have emerged as one of the leading technologies. These networks are designed to monitor crucial environmental parameters of humidity, temperature, wind speed, soil moisture content, UV index, sound, etc. and then transfer the required information to the base station. However, security remains the key challenge of such networks as critical data is being transferred. Most sensor nodes currently deployed have constraints on memory and processing power and hence operate without an efficient security protocol. Hereby a protocol which is lightweight and is secure for wireless sensor applications is proposed.

📄 Content

International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 145 – No.3, July 2016 6 Lightweight Security Protocol for WiSense based Wireless Sensor Network Sahilkumar Chakraborty Department of Electronics and Communication RV College of Engineering Bangalore, India

Astha Nachrani Department of Computer Science and Engineering RV College of Engineering Bangalore, India

Aronee Dasgupta Department of Telecommunication RV College of Engineering Bangalore, India

Pritam Gajkumar Shah, PhD Department of Computer Science and Engineering RV College of Engineering Bangalore, India

ABSTRACT Wireless Sensor Networks have emerged as one of the leading technologies. These networks are designed to monitor crucial environmental parameters of humidity, temperature, wind speed, soil moisture content, UV index, sound, etc. and then transfer the required information to the base station. However, security remains the key challenge of such networks as critical data is being transferred. Most sensor nodes currently deployed have constraints on memory and processing power and hence operate without an efficient security protocol. Hereby a protocol which is lightweight and is secure for wireless sensor applications is proposed.
General Terms Algorithm, Wireless Sensor Networks, Security, Cryptography Keywords Wireless sensor nodes; WiSense; Encryption; Decryption; AES; protocol optimizations; Rijndael

1. INTRODUCTION Due to developments in analogue and digital technologies many corporations have developed low power and low cost wireless sensor nodes which are used in sensing of environmental parameters [1]. Sensor nodes process the information gathered and then transmit it to the coordinator or to other slave nodes to provide intelligence for better understanding of the environment (depending upon the network topology) [2]. Applications include perimeter monitoring, vehicle emission monitoring, defence monitoring (in reconnaissance scenarios), etc. Openness of the channel and low physical protection of the channel poses a security risk. Current encryption standards have been designed for high performance devices and are taxing on the sensors which have low computation capabilities and have low available bandwidth. More so, security protocols, developed for ad hoc networks cannot be applied directly for sensor networks due to difference in their architecture design. Sensor networks are self-organizing, dynamic, with peer to peer data transmission capabilities sensor networks on the other hand have a well- defined topology with a central base station to which all the data is relayed. Employing traditional encryption algorithms in the sensor would cause extra bits to be processed and transmitted and due to the large processing delay incurred jitter and lag would occur throughout the network [3]. There is a paramount need for developing a robust encryption which does not required heavy cryptography processes but still provides sufficient security for the required application.

Implementing a robust yet lightweight algorithm is needed not just in the central base station but also the sensor nodes. There was a controversy regarding the implementation of AES algorithm for encryption and decryption in sensor networks utilizing the ZigBee protocol because AES needs high processing power and memory usage especially in nodes containing low amounts of available RAM [4]. Also the management and modification of the encryption keys in the sensor nodes is a major consideration as nodes are spatially distributed and remain away from direct human. The proposed protocol uses a combination of substitution using a S-Box matrix and an XOR operation with a key to provide a reasonable level of security for low performance nodes. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Fig. 1. Wireless Sensor Network Architecture Fig.1 [5] shows a typical wireless sensor network architecture consisting of various sensor nodes connected to the sink node. The sink can be controlled by a remote terminal over the Internet. Sensor networks comprise many nodes spatially distributed over a large area. Sensor nodes are designed to work for long durations of time (possibly stretching into months) to collect, analyse and return data to base station [5]. The sensor network may have the nodes designed as passive or active. In a passive node the base station listens to the node (and the node transmits the data back to the base station) only for a fixed duration in a time interval. This reduces the battery consumption of the node as the node can run in idle or low- power mode when the base station is not listening. A duty cycle is defined for the passive node sensor network. A smaller duty cycle helps in achieving better energy efficiency in the sensor network which is desirable [6]. In an active node the base station continuously listens to the node and the node pro

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