Security Issues In Sensor
Networks
By
Priya PalaniveluWhat Is A Sensor Network?
e Anetwork is formed when a set of small
sensor devices that are deployed in an ad
hoc fashion cooperate for sensing a physical
phenomenon.Typical application of sensor networks
Military sensor networks to detect enemy movements, the presence of
pazardous material (such as poison gases or radiation, explosions,
etc.
Environmental sensor networks (such as in plains or deserts or on
mountains or ocean surfaces) to detect and monitor environmental
changes.
Wireless traffic sensor networks to monitor vehicle traffic on a highway
or in a congested part of a city.
Wireless surveillance sensor networks for providing security in a
shopping mall, parking garage, or other facility.Communication Architecture
The sensor nodes communicate using RF
e The sensor nodes establish a routing forest, with a
base station at the root of every tree
Periodic transmission of beacons allows nodes to
create a routing topology.
e The base station accesses individual nodes using
source routing.Challenges Of Sensor Network
e Energy consumption primarily
— By radio communication
— Need to minimize communication overhead
e Reliance on asymmetric digital signature
~ Long signatures with high communication
overhead of 50-1000 bytes per packet
— Very high overhead to create & verify signature
“Symmetric broadcast authentication is impracticalRequirements for sensor networks security
Data Confidentiality
— From the observed communication pattern set up secure channels
between nodes and base stations
Data Authentication
- Construct authenticated broadcast from symmetric primitives only
— Introduce asymmetry with delayed key disclosure and one way
function key chains
Data Integrity
Data Freshness
- Recent data
~ No replay of dataCommunication Pattern Of The Sensor
Network
e 1) Node to base station communication, e.g. sensor
readings.
e 2) Base station to node communication, e.g. specific
requests.
e 3) Base station to all nodes, e.g. routing beacons,
queries or reprogramming of the entire network.PINS: Security Protocols for Sensor Networks
security building blocks optimized for source constrained
environments and wireless communication.
SPINS
_TESLA SNEP
Timed, Efficient, Streaming, Secure Network Encryption
Loss-tolerant Authentication Piatocol
Protocol),Important Baseline Security Primitives
e SNEP > Data confidentiality, two-party data
authentication, and data freshness
e UTESLA > new protocol which provides
authenticated broadcast for severely
resource-constrained environments.SNEP: Data Confidentiality, Authentication,
Integrity, and Freshness
e Low communication overhead
e Adds only 8 bytes per message
e Uses counter
e Counter value is kept at both end points
e Provides semantic security
— Prevents eavesdroppers from interfering the message
content from the encrypted message
e Data authentication, replay protection, and
weak/strong message freshnessSNEP-mechanism
Communicating parties share a counter, which is
used as an Initialization Vector (IV)
Counter is not sent with the message
Block ciphers are in Counter Mode (CTR)
Counter incremented after each block
MAC used to achieve 2 party data authentication
and data integrity
Counter value is never repeated
Counter value in MAC prevents replay attacksTESLA vs. ETESLA
e TESLA
- Authenticates initial packet with a digital signature
- Too expensive for sensor nodes
— Disclosing a key in each packet requires too much
energy(24bytes/packet)
- Expensive to store one-way key chain
e uTESLA
- Uses symmetric mechanism
- Discloses key once every epoch
- Restricts number of authenticated sendersTESLA Overview
Base station (BS) broadcasts authenticated information to
nodes
BS and nodes are loosely time synchronized
e Each node knows the upper bound on max. synchronization
error
BS computes a MAC on the packet
The key is secret at this point
Sensor receives the packet & stores it in buffer
BS broadcasts the verification key to all receivers
Node verifies the authenticity of the key
Node uses key to authenticate the packet in the bufferThank you!!!