Efficient key establishment for group-based wireless sensor deployments

Abstract

Establishing pairwise keys for each pair of neighboring sensors is the first concern in securing communication in sensor networks. This task is challenging because resources are limited. Several random key predistribution schemes have been proposed, but they are appropriate only when sensors are uniformly distributed with high density. These schemes also suffer from a dramatic degradation of security when the number of compromised sensors exceeds a threshold. In this paper, we present a group-based key predistribution scheme, GKE, which enables any pair of neighboring sensors to establish a unique pairwise key, regardless of sensor density or distribution. Since pairwise keys are unique, security in GKE degrades gracefully as the number of compromised nodes increases. In addition, GKE is very efficient since it requires only localized communication to establish pairwise keys, thus significantly reducing the communication overhead. Our security analysis and performance evaluation illustrate the superiority of GKE in terms of resilience, connectivity, communication overhead and memory requirement.

Scaling Laws of Key Predistribution Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

“…In the basic protocol [3], random keys are pre-distributed. In the KP protocol variant in [4], unique pairwise keys are distributed into pairs of sensors [3], q − composite [4], direct/cooperative [8], random keys probabilistic [9], deployment knowledge [11], P IKE [12], RKEP [13], conf iguration/intersection [15] nature of distributed keys unique pairwise keys random pairwise key [4], closest pairwise key [7], GKE [16] multi − space [5], random subset [6], grid based [6], random key structures location based [7], location aware [10], hexagonal grid [14], multivariate [17] [18] key setup basic protocol [3], q − composite [4], multivariate [17] [18], random multi − space [5], random subset [6], direct/cooperative [8], probabilistic [9], RKEP [13], key distribution method random pairwise key [4], closest pairwise key [7] optimization design conf iguration/intersection [15] quorum based grid based [6], P IKE [12] grid based location based [7], location aware [10], deployment knowledge [11], hexagonal grid [14], GKE [16] closest pairwise key/location based [7], location aware [10], aware deployment knowledge [11], hexagonal grid …”

“…grid based [6], closest pairwise key/location based [7], maximum number of hops cooperative [8], P IKE [12], RKEP [13], intersection [15] on one key path 3 location aware [10], GKE [16] basic protocol [3], q − composite [4], multi − space [5], ∞ random subset [6], probabilistic [9], deployment knowledge [11], multivariate [17] [18] chosen randomly. Resilience is enhanced at the cost of poor connectivity in large scale networks under memory constraints.…”

An Efficient Pairwise Key Establishment Scheme for Sensor Networks

“…To achieve a better scalability, the group-based scheme [10,11,12] have been proposed. Du et al [10] first employed sensor nodes deployment in the key pre-distribution.…”

“…Compare to the basic scheme [2], this scheme requires less memory to achieve an even higher connectivity because sensor nodes pick keys from a smaller subset of key pool. In [11,12], sensor nodes are grouped based on IDs to form horizontal and vertical groups. Any pair of sensor belongs to the same group are preloaded with a unique key before deployment.…”

Chord-Based Key Establishment Schemes for Sensor Networks

“…Any two nodes in the same row or column preshare a unique key; nodes not presharing a key establish keys through intermediate nodes. Location-based schemes (e.g., [2], [9], [14]) take advantage of location information to improve key establishment.…”