Three Improved Algorithms for Multipath Key Establishment in Sensor Networks Using Protocols for Secure Message Transmission

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a security model to capture active attacks against multi-path key establishment (MPKE) in sensor networks. Our model enhances previous models to capture more attacks and achieve essential security goals for multi-path key establishment. In this model, we can apply protocols for perfectly secure message transmission to solve the key establishment problem. We propose a new protocol for optimal one-round perfectly secure message transmission based on Reed-Solomon codes. Then we use this protocol to obtain two new multipath key establishment schemes that can be applied provided that fewer than one third of the paths contain an adversary node. Finally, we describe another MPKE scheme that tolerates a higher fraction (less than 1/2) of paths controlled by the adversary. This scheme is based on a new protocol for a weakened version of message transmission, which is very simple and efficient.Our multi-path key establishment schemes achieve improved security and lower communication complexity, as compared to previous schemes.