Wireless sensor network security model using zero knowledge protocol

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) offer an excellent opportunity to monitor environments, and have a lot of interesting applications, some of which are quite sensitive in nature and require full proof secured environment. The security mechanisms used for wired networks cannot be directly used in sensor networks as there is no user-controlling of each individual node, wireless environment, and more importantly, scarce energy resources. In this paper, we address some of the special security threats and attacks in WSNs. We propose a scheme for detection of distributed sensor cloning attack and use of zero knowledge protocol (ZKP) for verifying the authenticity of the sender sensor nodes. The cloning attack is addressed by attaching a unique fingerprint to each node, that depends on the set of neighboring nodes and itself. The fingerprint is attached with every message a sensor node sends. The ZKP is used to ensure non transmission of crucial cryptographic information in the wireless network in order to avoid man-in-the middle (MITM) attack and replay attack. The paper presents a detailed analysis for various scenarios and also analyzes the performance and cryptographic strength. © 2011 IEEE.