Trust-based key management scheme for wireless sensor networks

Security for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a significant challenge. Several trust-based key management schemes have been proposed for securing WSNs without considering the limitations associated with sensor nodes in WSNs. Sensor nodes are small in size with limited capabilities such as, storage, energy and computation. Securing data communication channels requires the establishments of shared encryption keys. This thesis presents the design of a lightweight trust based key management scheme for WSNs. The proposed scheme provides data communication security through an efficient key distribution model, ensuring the generation and distribution of keys using an elliptic curve key encryption and a Diffie-Hellmankey exchange protocol. The proposed novel trust based key management model provides a degree of security by enabling a sensor node to estimate a trust value associated with a target.The proposed model is a lightweight model, with the aim to provide security for WSNs, reduce computation overhead and save energy consumption in the process. The model ensures that only a small amount of a node resources is required for an efficient implementation by not recording unnecessary information and also avoiding multiple computation where possible. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the proposed model.