WSN node access authentication protocol based on trusted computing

Abstract

Although wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are widely used in many fields, such as industrial production, medical studies, and environmental monitoring, they are vulnerable to various security problems. This study proposes a WSN node access authentication protocol based on trusted connection architecture to prevent easy node capture and various malicious attacks as well as to address the limited energy and computing power and different levels of node credibility in WSNs. First, each node of a WSN is configured using a trusted platform module to ensure complete key generation and safe storage, and thus provides security for the access protocol. Second, an alarm mechanism is introduced to avoid cluster node issues, such as not forwarding data, forwarding part of the data, and forwarding wrong data. This mechanism enhances the troubleshooting capability. Finally, during node access, bidirectional node identity authentication, platform identity authentication, and platform integrity verification are performed to achieve trusted node access. Our protocol is formally verified using Syverson-Van Oorschot (SVO) logic. The security features are applied to analyze the protocol, and back-end analysis modules such as On-the-fly Model-Checker (OFMC) and Constraint Logic based Attack Searcher (CL-AtSe) of the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool are used to test the protocol. The theoretical analysis and test results show that the established security target of the protocol can resist network attacks in real application scenarios. In addition, the implementation efficiency of the protocol is sufficiently analyzed and evaluated. The results show that the protocol has high execution efficiency. In particular, the protocol is suitable for WSNs with high security requirements and limited computing power.