Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor
network consists of large
Number Of Nodes.Large
number of heterogeneous
Sensor devices spread over a
large
field.They perform Wireless
sensing and Data Networking.
Group of sensors linked by
wireless media
to perform distributed sensing
tasks
Each node has three
components: sensing,
processing, and
communication. Networked
sensors can continue to
operate accurately in face of
failure of individual
sensors.Each sensor node
operates autonomously with
no central point of control in
the network. Each node
bases its decision on its
mission.

SPIN: Sensor Protocols for

Information Negotiation

It is one of the most dominant

form of routing in the wireless
sensor networks.The SPIN
protocol names the data using
data descriptors or meta
data.The nodes use meta
data negotiations to eliminate
transmission of redundant
data in the network. SPIN
nodes can base their
communication decisions on
knowledge of data and
resources allowing them to
distribute data given limited
energy supply.

÷

 
negotiation
-SPIN nodes negotiate with
each other before transmitting
data. This ensures that only
the useful information is
transferred.
-SPIN uses descriptors called
meta data
-Redundant data messages
are not sent
-Nodes are able to name the
portion of data they are
interested in obtaining.

Resource adaptation
-The wireless sensor
network nodes poll their
resources before data
transmission
-Each sensor node had its
own resource manager that
keeps track of resource
consumption
-Nodes are aware of their
local energy resources and
this enables them to reduce
their activities when their
energy resources are low
-Nodes monitor and adapt to
changes in their own energy
resources and thus extend
the operating lifetime of the
system

    

  

With thousands to millions of
small sensors form self-
organizing wireless networks
in the future,
providing security for these
sensor networks is a big
issue.
SPINS has two secure
building blocks: SNEP(Secure
Network Encryption
Protocol) and
microTESLA((the micro
version of the Timed,
Efficient, Streaming, Loss-
tolerant Authentication
Protocol). SNEP provides the
following : Data
confidentiality, two-party data
authentication, and data
freshness. microTESLA
provides authenticated
broadcast for severely
resource-constrained
environments.

    !

"#
SNEP:
This provides Data
Confidentiality,
Authentication, Integrity, and
Freshness.
- it has low communication
overhead as it adds only 8
bytes per message.The
counter state is kept at each
end point and does not need
to be sent in each message.
-it uses a counter, but avoids
transmitting the counter value
by keeping state at both
end points.
- It achieves
semantic security which
prevents eavesdroppers from
inferring the
message content from the
encrypted message.
- This protocol also provides
data authentication, replay
protection, and weak
message freshness.
To achieve two-party
authentication and data
integrity, a message
authentication code (MAC) is
used.
Data authentication: If the
MAC(message authentication
code) verifies correctly, a
receiver
can be assured that the
message originated from the
claimed sender.
Replay protection: The
counter value in the MAC
prevents replaying old
messages.

Semantic security: the same

message is encrypted
differently each time.

Weak freshness: If the

message verified correctly, a
receiver
knows that the message must
have been sent after the
previous
message it received correctly.
Thus it achieves weak
freshness.

microTESLA
microTESLA overcomes
introduces asymmetry
through a delayed disclosure
of symmetric
keys, which results in an
efficient broadcast
authentication
scheme. It requires that the
base station and nodes are
loosely
time synchronized, and each
node knows an upper bound
on the
maximum synchronization
error. To send an
authenticated packet of data,
the base station computes a
MAC on the packet with a key
that is secret at that particular
point in time. When a node
gets a packet, it can
verify that the corresponding
MAC key was not yet
disclosed by
the base station. Since a
receiving node is assured that
the MAC key
is known only by the
base station, the receiving
node is assured that the data
was not modified during the
sending process. If the key is
correct, the node can
now use it to authenticate the
packet stored in its buffer.

Reference: http://www.seminarprojects.com/Thread-spins-spins-security-
protocols-for-sensor-networks#ixzz1IpxZZN1Gc