Lightweight security protocol for WSNs using hybrid cryptography algorithm

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a massive number of tiny nodes installed in harsh and hostile environments to monitor and gather specific data. WSNs installed to support bridge structures, healthcare, robotics, environmental monitoring, etc. WSNs can be used to monitor the pressure, temperature, sabotage of transmission lines, and leak detection. WSNs are vulnerable to different attacks. Cryptographic algorithms have a good role in information security for wireless sensor networks. Accordingly, various cryptographic algorithms provide security in networks. Cryptography has two techniques: the symmetric-key technique and the asymmetric-key technique. But there are still some problems. For example, to store the key across all nodes in the network, the symmetric-key technique needs more storage, while the asymmetric-key technique takes more computation time. This paper proposed a hybrid security algorithm that provides a high-security level with high-speed encryption and decryption using symmetric-key and asymmetric-key cryptographic techniques to avoid computation and memory overheads. It gives three cryptographic primitives, confidentiality, integrity, and authentication. The concept is to use the Blowfish to provide encryption, Message Digest 5 (MD5) for integrity, and Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) for authentication. The proposed algorithm obtains the best results overall using two computers (A and B) compared to several other algorithms in terms of ciphertext size, encryption time, decryption time, and throughput. By using computer A and the plaintext size is 609 Bytes, the proposed algorithm has 87.9% ciphertext size compared to HA, 19.6% encryption time compared to HCA, and 41.1% decryption time compared to HCA.