IEEE 802.15.4 addresses low-rate wireless personal area networks, enables low power devices, and includes a number of security provisions and options (the security sublayer). Security competes with performance for the scarce resources of low power, low cost sensor devices. So, a proper design of efficient and secure applications requires to know the impact that IEEE 802.15.4 security services have on the protocol performance. In this paper we present the preliminary results of a research activity aimed at quantitatively evaluating such impact from different standpoints including memory consumption, network performance, and energy consumption. The evaluation exploits a free implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 security sublayer

ZigBee outlines a new suite of protocols targeted at low-rate, low-power devices and sensor nodes. ZigBee Specification includes a number of security provisions and options. The security model specified in the Smart Energy Profile seems bound to become the reference security model for most of ZigBee applications. In this paper we review this security model and highlight places where its specification presents concerns and possible inefficiencies in security management. Specifically, we show that the specification does not adequately address the forward security requirement so allowing a number of threats at the routing and application layer. Furthermore, we show inefficiencies in managing both the Network Key and devices certificates. Finally, we make some proposals to address these problems.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are frequently adopted in industrial applications. However, they are particularly prone to cyber-physical attacks. Since addressing all possible attacks is not viable, due to performance and economic reasons, it is vital to choose which attacks to address and which countermeasures to adopt. Hence, a quantitative analysis of attack impact is crucial to make an effective choice. In this paper, we present a simulative approach to attack impact analysis, and show that simulation results provide valuable insights on the attack severity. To fix ideas, we refer to a WSN monitoring pollutant emissions of a critical infrastructure. We analyze effects of cyber-physical attacks against the network, and rank them according to their impact severity. This supports designers in deciding which attacks to address and which countermeasures to select.

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