Abstract
Secure broadcasting is an essential feature for critical operations in wireless sensor network (WSNs). However, due to the limited resources of sensor networks, verifying the authenticity for broadcasted messages is a very difficult issue. μTESLA is a broadcast authentication protocol, which uses network-wide loose time synchronization with one-way hashed keys to provide the authenticity verification. However, it suffers from several flaws considering the delay tolerance, and the chain length restriction. In this paper, we propose a protocol which provides broadcast authentication for wireless sensor networks. This protocol uses a nested hash chain of two different hash functions and the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT). The two different nested hash functions are employed for the seed updating and the key generation. Each sensor node is challenged independently with a common broadcasting message using the CRT. Our algorithm provides forward and non-restricted key generation, and in addition, no time synchronization is required. Furthermore, receivers can instantly authenticate packets in real time. Moreover, the comprehensive analysis shows that this scheme is efficient and practical, and can achieve better performance than the μTESLA system.
Highlights
Achieving broadcast security is a must for wireless sensor networks; it is necessary for the base station to broadcast commands and data to sensor nodes
Broadcast authentication based on asymmetric key cryptography cannot deal with the limited resource constrains
We propose a new algorithm that uses two different types of hash functions, which come with a nested chain and the Chinese Reminder Theorem in order to get a common broadcasting message
Summary
Achieving broadcast security is a must for wireless sensor networks; it is necessary for the base station to broadcast commands and data to sensor nodes. The current security solutions for wired and wireless networks cannot be utilized for a wireless sensor network because of the energy, memory and computation restrictions of the latter These limitations make the design and operation completely dissimilar to those of regular wireless networks. Broadcast authentication based on asymmetric key cryptography cannot deal with the limited resource constrains. Symmetric key cryptography and hash functions are cheaper in their computational requirements and are more widely utilized in sensor networks [1,2]. TIK [7] was proposed to achieve immediate authentication based on sensitive time synchronization between the sink and the receiving nodes. This technique is not suitable for WSNs, as mentioned by its inventors. Scheme’s performance, Section 6 analyzes the security attributes, and Section 7 concludes the paper
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