Security software engineering in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

The engineering of security is an essential discipline in software engineering. It requires one to embrace a holistic approach, as any weakness along the engineering process of the system may lead to future security breaches. It is in general difficult to achieve and becomes particularly acute in wireless sensor networks, owing to the stringent limitations in communication and computational power. We survey the current state of the art on this topic and set forth issues that require further study. The analysis of current work covers general security issues of wireless sensor network research and discusses the present achievements for engineering security with regards to earlier surveys in this domain. We also cover security capabilities of major implementation platforms, namely TinyOS and Sun SPOT™, and present available and required mechanisms that will become essential for software engineers. ©2008 National Instiute of Informatics.