New Directions in Sensor Network Key Management

Abstract

Sensor networks require efficient, low latency key management techniques that enable strong security and tolerance of node compromise. Conventional interactive approaches using public key certificate-based key management techniques are not communications efficient and are very time-consuming. Protocols that leverage elliptic curve cryptography reduce communications but still require considerable interactive exchange. Noninteractive techniques that leverage identity-based public-key cryptography show considerable promise, but these techniques are relatively immature and require considerable computations. Conversely, random key predistribution techniques reduce computations, but at the expense of many interactions. In this paper, we describe recent work in the cryptographic community that combines the benefits of both identity-based cryptography and random-key predistribution into a framework we call identity-based random-key predistribution (IBRKP). IBRKP establishes pair-wise keys with virtually no extra communications and provides security versus node memory trade-offs for the sensor network designer to engineer.

Disclaimer: Prepared through collaborative participation in the Communications and Networks Consortium sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under the Collaborative Technology Alliance Program, Cooperative Agreement DAAD19-01-2-0011. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation therein. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. Government.

Keywords:

• Wireless sensor networks
• key predistribution
• security
• key management

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank Greg Cirincione's review of an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

Disclaimer: Prepared through collaborative participation in the Communications and Networks Consortium sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory under the Collaborative Technology Alliance Program, Cooperative Agreement DAAD19-01-2-0011. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation therein. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. Government.

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