Integrated Shared Random Key Agreement Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

The secured data transmission in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) relies on effective key generation and secured sharing. The generated key must be random to enhance data confidentiality. The processes associated with the security in WSN must be designed at reduced computing time and communication cost. Our research work aims to design a novel lightweight key-sharing protocol that is needed for ensuring data confidentiality. The protocol must meet the constraints of WSN by being lightweight and consuming less energy. Security breaches in WSNs occur due to insecure keys. This can be overcome by generating shared keys which are generated once using the dynamic features of Sensor Nodes (SNs) when the Cluster Heads (CHs) are selected. In this research work, we have generated the Master Shared Key (MSK) at the transmitter node by forming a Galois Ring (GR) using WSN parameters and derived the Shared Random Key (SRK) using matched positions of exchanged Random Sequences (RSs). It is protected using a Physically Unclonable Function (PUF). The novelty lies in the SRK generation from MSK which is chosen at random from the polynomials generated during the formation of GR. The MSK is securely shared with the receiver node by encrypting using a Preloaded Key (PK). After this exchange, the key for encryption and decryption is derived by the transmitter and the receiver by exchanging RSs. The SRK is then encrypted using a key which is a unique fingerprint of the SN generated using PUF and stored in the SNs and the CHs to prevent node capture attack that occurs in WSN. Our proposed Shared Random Key Agreement Protocol (SRKAP) is comparable to the Localized Encryption and Authentication Protocol (LEAP) and performs better compared to the Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) algorithm