We consider routing security in wireless sensor networks. Many sensor network routing protocols have been proposed, but none of them have been designed with security as a goal. We propose security goals for routing in sensor networks, show how attacks against ad-hoc and peer-to-peer networks can be adapted into powerful attacks against sensor networks, introduce two classes of novel attacks against sensor networks sinkholes and HELLO floods, and analyze the security of all the major sensor network routing protocols. We describe crippling attacks against all of them and suggest countermeasures and design considerations. This is the first such analysis of secure routing in sensor networks.

/pdf/secure-routing-in-wireless-sensor-networks-attacks-and-4630unozk9.pdf

Secure routing in wireless sensor networks: attacks and countermeasures

As sensor networks edge closer towards wide-spread deployment, security issues become a central concern. So far, much research has focused on making sensor networks feasible and useful, and has not concentrated on security.We present a suite of security building blocks optimized for resource-constrained environments and wireless communication. SPINS has two secure building blocks: SNEP and mTESLA SNEP provides the following important baseline security primitives: Data confidentiality, two-party data authentication, and data freshness. A particularly hard problem is to provide efficient broadcast authentication, which is an important mechanism for sensor networks. mTESLA is a new protocol which provides authenticated broadcast for severely resource-constrained environments. We implemented the above protocols, and show that they are practical even on minimal hardware: the performance of the protocol suite easily matches the data rate of our network. Additionally, we demonstrate that the suite can be used for building higher level protocols.

http://www.csl.mtu.edu/cs5461/www/Reading/Perrig02.pdf

SPINS: security protocols for sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks will be widely deployed in the near future. While much research has focused on making these networks feasible and useful, security has received little attention. We present a suite of security protocols optimized for sensor networks: SPINS. SPINS has two secure building blocks: SNEP and μTESLA. SNEP includes: data confidentiality, two-party data authentication, and evidence of data freshness. μTESLA provides authenticated broadcast for severely resource-constrained environments. We implemented the above protocols, and show that they are practical even on minimal hardware: the performance of the protocol suite easily matches the data rate of our network. Additionally, we demonstrate that the suite can be used for building higher level protocols.

An ad hoc network is a group of wireless mobile computers (or nodes), in which individual nodes cooperate by forwarding packets for each other to allow nodes to communicate beyond direct wireless transmission range. Prior research in ad hoc networking has generally studied the routing problem in a non-adversarial setting, assuming a trusted environment. In this paper, we present attacks against routing in ad hoc networks, and we present the design and performance evaluation of a new secure on-demand ad hoc network routing protocol, called Ariadne. Ariadne prevents attackers or compromised nodes from tampering with uncompromised routes consisting of uncompromised nodes, and also prevents a large number of types of Denial-of-Service attacks. In addition, Ariadne is efficient, using only highly efficient symmetric cryptographic primitives.

/pdf/ariadne-a-secure-on-demand-routing-protocol-for-ad-hoc-57ex02ywre.pdf

Ariadne: a secure on-demand routing protocol for ad hoc networks

Pairwise key establishment is a fundamental security service in sensor networks; it enables sensor nodes to communicate securely with each other using cryptographic techniques. However, due to the resource constraints on sensors, it is infeasible to use traditional key management techniques such as public key cryptography and key distribution center (KDC). To facilitate the study of novel pairwise key predistribution techniques, this paper presents a general framework for establishing pairwise keys between sensors on the basis of a polynomial-based key predistribution protocol [2]. This paper then presents two efficient instantiations of the general framework: a random subset assignment key predistribution scheme and a grid-based key predistribution scheme. The analysis in this paper indicates that these two schemes have a number of nice properties, including high probability (or guarantee) to establish pairwise keys, tolerance of node captures, and low communication overhead. Finally, this paper presents a technique to reduce the computation at sensors required by these schemes.

Establishing pairwise keys in distributed sensor networks

We consider the problem of securing communication in large ad hoc networks, i.e., wireless networks with no fixed, wired infrastructure and with multi-hop routes. Such networks, e.g., networks of sensors, are deployed for applications such as microsensing, monitoring and control, and for extending the peer-to-peer communication capability of smaller group of network users. Because the nodes of these networks, which we term pebbles for their very limited size and large number, are resource constrained, only symmetric key cryptography is feasible. We propose a key management scheme to periodically update the symmetric keys used by all pebbles. By combining mobility-adaptive clustering and an effective probabilistic selection of the key-generating node, the proposed scheme meets the requirements of efficiency, scalability and security needed for the survivability of networks of pebbles (pebblenets)

Kris Herrin

Papers

Secure pebblenets