An Efficient Authenticated Elliptic Curve Cryptography Scheme for Multicore Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The need to ensure the longevity of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and secure their communication has spurred various researchers to come up with various WSN models. Prime among the methods for extending the life span of WSNs is the clustering of Wireless Sensors (WS), which reduces the workload of WS and thereby reduces its power consumption. However, a drastic reduction in the power consumption of the sensors when multicore sensors are used in combination with sensors clustering has not been well explored. Therefore, this work proposes a WSN model that employs clustering of multicore WS. The existing Elliptic Curve Cryptographic (ECC) algorithm is optimized for parallel execution of the encryption/decryption processes and security against primitive attacks. The Elliptic Curve Diffie-Helman (ECDH) was used for the key exchange algorithm, and the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) was used to authenticate the communicating nodes. Security analysis of the model and comparative performance analysis with the existing ones were demonstrated. The security analysis results reveal that the proposed model meets the security requirements and resists various security attacks. Additionally, the projected model is scalable, energy-conservative, and supports data freshness. The results of comparative performance analysis show that the proposed WSN model can efficiently leverage multiprocessors and/or many cores for quicker execution and conserves power usage.