An efficient authentication and key establishment scheme for heterogeneous sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consists of a large number of small and resource constrained devices. Due to their low cost, flexibility and self-organizing nature, these devices are used in various applications such as home and industrial automation, environmental and habitat monitoring and even in more security sensitive military applications in which security of the information in terms of both snooping and tampering is very important. Such applications introduce various security challenges to these resource constrained devices. To cope with these challenges, a proper authentication and key establishment is required. In this paper, we present an effective authentication and key establishment scheme for the heterogeneous sensor networks. The proposed solution is tested using the OMNET++ simulator and results show that it provides better network connectivity, consume less memory and has better network resilience against attacks.