A Resource-Optimal Key Pre-distribution Scheme for Secure Wireless Sensor Networks

Security in wireless sensor networks is very pressing especially when sensor nodes are deployed in hostile environments. To obtain security purposes, it is essential to be able to encrypt and authenticate messages sent amongst sensor nodes. Keys for encryption and authentication must be agreed upon by communicating nodes. Due to resource limitations and other unique features, obtaining such key agreement in wireless sensor network is extremely complex. Many key agreement schemes used in general networks, such as trusted server, Diffie-Hellman and public-key based schemes, are not suitable for wireless sensor networks [1], [2], [5], [7], [8]. In that situation, key pre-distribution scheme has been emerged and considered as the most appropriate scheme [2], [5], [7]. Based on that sense, we propose a new resource-optimal key pre-distribution scheme utilizing merits of the two existing key pre-distribution schemes [3], [4]. Our scheme exhibits the fascinating properties: substantial improvement in sensors' resource usage, rigorous guarantee of successfully deriving pairwise keys between any pair of nodes, greatly improved network resiliency against node capture attack. We also present a detailed analysis in terms of security and resource usage of the scheme.