Security in Wireless Sensor Networks

John A. Stankovic
BP America Professor
University of Virginia


Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are envisioned to consist of large numbers of minimum capacity devices operating in demanding real-world environments. These issues, together with the inherent problems of wireless communication, make security an especially difficult problem. Many WSN also need to operate under real-time constraints. We discuss three routing protocols for WSN that have good real-time performance properties: SPEED, RAP and IGF. We suggest extensions to these protocols that improve their security properties. Denial of service is another key problem facing WSN. We discuss a highly decentralized algorithm for the detection and mapping of jammed regions of a WSN. The solution is robust to failures and can operate on partial information (a type of anytime algorithm). We conclude by considering several potential future directions for security solutions, including: secure groups based on relaxed semantics, exploiting physical properties, exploiting time validity intervals for data, and the interaction between security and privacy.