Tree based node verification key management scheme for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Sensor nodes are usually geographically placed across the particular environment. Sensor nodes are limited in capacities like computation power, memory, and processing speed. They collect sensitive information and send to the central base station. A novel TNVS is proposed that identifies certain nodes as authenticator nodes that have relatively high capability in storage, computation and power compared to the regular sensor nodes. These nodes are used for verifying new nodes that are being added into the network, thereby eliminating the entry of malicious nodes into the network. The master key that is shared by all the nodes of the network is renewed periodically to avoid node capture attack. Simulation and results show that in addition to providing authentication TNVS also requires less number of keys when compared to the existing key management schemes there by reducing the burden on memory requirement of the network.