New Framework for Enhanced Secure Key Management in Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

The salient features of WSN like use of wireless radio communication, collaborative nature and deployment in the open environment exposes it to many security threats. Since WSN has tight limitations on the power consumption, transmission and computation the complex cryptographic algorithms can't be used to provide the security. Key management in WSN is the fundamental line of defense for a secure communication and thus it is very important. In this paper we propose a new framework for enhanced key management for hierarchical WSN which enhances the security of the network. In the proposed framework the base station computes all the keys required for both inter and intra cluster communications. Cluster is further isolated into small geographical areas on the basis of hop count from the cluster head. The sensor nodes in the network join the cluster on the basis of the distance (hop counts) from the cluster head which localizes the path key things and reduces the overhead. The proposed framework is divided into four stages pre key distribution, pair wise key establishment, computing the path key and re keying all the keys. General TermsWireless sensor network, security, key management, hop count, and cluster.