Towards choosing authentication and encryption: Communication security in sensor networks

Abstract

Sensor networks are composed of provide low powered, inexpensive distributed devices which can be deployed over enormous physical spaces. Coordination between sensor devices is required to achieve a common communication. In low cost, low power and short-range wireless environment, sensor networks cope with significant resource constraints. Security is one of main issues in wireless sensor networks because of potential adversaries. Several security protocols and models have been implemented for communication on computing devices but deployment these models and protocols into the sensor networks is not easy because of the resource constraints mentioned. Memory intensive encryption algorithms as well as high volume of packet transmission cannot be applied to sensor devices due to its low computational speed and memory. Deployment of sensor networks without security mechanism makes sensor nodes vulnerable to potential attacks. Therefore, attackers compromise the network to accept malicious sensor nodes as legitimate nodes. This paper provides the different security models as a metric, which can then be used to make pertinent security decisions for securing wireless sensor network communication.