Key management system for WSNs based on hash functions and elliptic curve cryptography

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a public key cryptography-based key management protocol for wireless sensor networks, identifies vulnerabilities, and proposes an improved, energy-efficient protocol that prevents denial of service attacks with minimal additional energy use.

Contribution

It introduces a modified protocol that enhances security against DOS attacks and achieves immediate authentication with only 1.82 mJ extra energy consumption.

Findings

Original protocol vulnerable to DOS attacks

Modified protocol provides immediate authentication

Additional energy cost is 1.82 mJ

Abstract

Due to hostile environment and wireless communication channel, security mechanisms are essential for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Existence of a pair of shared key is a prerequisite for many of these security mechanisms; a task that key management system addresses. Recently, an energy efficient method based on public key cryptography (PKC) was proposed. We analyze this protocol and show that it is vulnerable to denial of service (DOS) attacks and adversary can exhaust memory and battery of nodes. Then, we analyze this protocol and show that using a more knowledgeable BS this vulnerability can be solved very efficiently. Based on this observation we propose a modified version of the protocol that achieves immediate authentication and can prevent DOS attacks. We show that the improved protocol achieves immediate authentication at the expense of 1.82 mj extra energy consumption while retaining other desirable characteristics of the basic method.