A framework for constructing a secure domain of sensor nodes

Abstract

Application of the Internet of Things (IoT) in some critical areas (e.g., military) is limited mainly due to the lack of robust, secure, and trusted measures needed to ensure the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of information throughout its lifecycle. Considering the mostly limited resources of IoT devices connected by wireless networks and their dynamic placement in unsupervised or even hostile environments, security is a complex and considerable issue. In this paper, a framework which encompasses an approach to integrate some security measures to build a so-called “secure domain of sensors nodes” is proposed. The framework is based on the use of the Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) in wireless sensor nodes. It encompasses an architecture of sensor nodes, their roles in the domain, and the data structures as well as the developed procedures which could be applied to generate the credentials for the sensor nodes, and subsequently, to build a local trust structure of each node as well as to build a trust relationship between a domain’s nodes. The proposed solution ensures the authentication of sensor nodes and their resistance against unauthorized impact with the hardware/software configuration allowing protection against malware that can infect the software. The usefulness of the presented framework was confirmed experimentally.