Symmetric-Key-Based Security for Multicast Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This paper presents a new key management protocol for group-based communications in non-hierarchical wireless sensor networks (WSNs), applied on a recently proposed IP-based multicast protocol. Confidentiality, integrity, and authentication are established, using solely symmetric-key-based operations. The protocol features a cloud-based network multicast manager (NMM), which can create, control, and authenticate groups in the WSN, but is not able to derive the actual constructed group key. Three main phases are distinguished in the protocol. First, in the registration phase, the motes register to the group by sending a request to the NMM. Second, the members of the group calculate the shared group key in the key construction phase. For this phase, two different methods are tested. In the unicast approach, the key material is sent to each member individually using unicast messages, and in the multicast approach, a combination of Lagrange interpolation and a multicast packet are used. Finally, in the multicast communication phase, these keys are used to send confidential and authenticated messages. To investigate the impact of the proposed mechanisms on the WSN, the protocol was implemented in ContikiOS and simulated using COOJA, considering different group sizes and multi-hop communication. These simulations show that the multicast approach compared to the unicast approach results in significant smaller delays, is a bit more energy efficient, and requires more or less the same amount of memory for the code.

Recent Advancement of Data-Driven Models in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

“…The WSN protocol architecture is designed to be energy efficient and meet application needs. There are two types of data collection protocols now in use: hierarchical protocols and non-hierarchical protocols [15]. The attraction of a non-hierarchical collection of protocol modules over a completely vertically stacked design, which is common in several other groups of communication systems, is that events transmitted through one layer (module) do not need to be analyzed with an intermediary layer.…”

Highly efficient key agreement for remote patient monitoring in MEC-enabled 5G networks

“…A recent example is the scheme of Amin et al [6], which presents a lightweight key agreement protocol for IoT devices in a distributed cloud environment, where the user equipped with an IoT device, service provider and control server achieve mutual authentication, resulting in a common shared session key between user and service provider. In [14] a symmetric key based protocol for multicast communication in wireless sensor networks has been proposed, where one of the nodes take the role of cluster manager and is responsible for the key management. Another example is the key management and user authentication scheme proposed by Wazid et al [46].…”

Fog-Orchestrated and Server-Controlled Anonymous Group Authentication and Key Agreement

“…The setting, mostly related to fog architecture, corresponds to the one of non-hierarchical or distributed networks, where one of the nodes takes the role of group leader. Here, we can distinguish the following schemes [29]- [33]. In [29], a symmetric key based scheme has been proposed in which a cloud server appoints one of the members of the WSN as group leader and shares the required key material with it.…”

“…Here, we can distinguish the following schemes [29]- [33]. In [29], a symmetric key based scheme has been proposed in which a cloud server appoints one of the members of the WSN as group leader and shares the required key material with it. Another symmetric key based solution is proposed in [30], for which a robot-assisted network bootstrapping technique is put forward.…”