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.