Secure energy aware multi-path routing with key management in wireless sensor network

Abstract

With the ability to work under critical environments where human interception is difficult, wireless sensor networks serves as a useful communication means for data transmission and collection. But like other wireless networks WSN is also prone to adversary interventions. So the researchers are addressing this issue to make routing protocols secure for communication. But due to the severe resource constraints on sensor nodes like limited battery life and limited storage capacity prevents the traditional complex security mechanisms to be employed on the sensor nodes. In this paper we propose a new routing algorithm called Secure Energy Aware Multipath Routing with Key Management (SEAM-KM) in Wireless Sensor Network. This protocol focuses on using a base station as the central control block for all kinds of computation like shortest path selection, routing table generation, Updating the routing table and distribution of pair wise keys among the sensor nodes and the base station. Leaving the energy consuming computations to be performed by the base station, the lifetime of the sensor nodes can be prolonged. Moreover distribution of pair wise keys among sensor nodes provides security among sensor nodes and also increases the resilience of the network. This protocol is resistive to some of the specific attacks which rely on forming attractive routes to lure the sensor nodes to communicate through the already compromised nodes.