Comprehensible security synthesis for wireless sensor networks

ABSTRACT

Providing usable security mechanisms for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is one of the important tasks to foster WSN development, as they will increasingly be deployed in real-world settings in the future. Generally, due to its complexity, expert knowledge in the field of security is needed to plan, implement, and deploy a sound security setup. Frequently, no or only basic security mechanisms leave the WSN open to attacks of which the application designer might not be aware, especially if no security evaluation has been done. Furthermore, available security mechanisms have a great impact on the design of the application itself, i.e. to properly secure a protocol. We therefore propose a framework that first devises feasible security setups based on the characteristics of the envisioned application and second provides a security evaluation of theses possibilities from which the application designer is able to choose the fitting setup for his application. We have prototypically implemented the proposed scheme into the WSN middleware synthesis tool FABRIC and thus support the application designer in including a sound security solution into his application.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems

  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures

General Terms:
Design, Security

Keywords:
middleware, security assessment, sensor networks