Authentication in Reprogramming of Sensor Networks for Mote Class Adversaries

Abstract

Reprogramming is an essential service for wireless sensor networks. Authenticating reprogramming process is important as sensors need to verify that the code image is truly from a trusted source. There are two ways to achieve authentication: public key based and symmetric key based. Although previous work has shown that public key authentication is feasible on sensor nodes if used sparingly, it is still quite expensive compared to symmetric key based approach. In this paper, we propose a symmetric key-based protocol for authenticating the reprogramming process. Our protocol is based on the secret instantiation algorithm, which requires only O(log n) keys to be maintained at each sensor. We integrate this algorithm with the existing reprogramming protocol. Through simulation, we show that it is able to authenticate the reprogramming process at very low communication cost, and has very short delay.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA459066

Entities

People

  • Limin Wang
  • Sandeep S. Kulkarni

Organizations

  • Michigan State University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Authentication
  • Computations
  • Computer Science
  • Cryptography
  • Damage Detection
  • Denial Of Service Attack
  • Detectors
  • Engineering
  • Information Operations
  • Networks
  • Resistance
  • Security Protocols
  • Sensor Networks
  • Simulations
  • Software Development
  • Verification

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Molecular and Cellular Biology
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.