We introduce TinySec, the first fully-implemented link layer security architecture for wireless sensor networks. In our design, we leverage recent lessons learned from design vulnerabilities in security protocols for other wireless networks such as 802.11b and GSM. Conventional security protocols tend to be conservative in their security guarantees, typically adding 16--32 bytes of overhead. With small memories, weak processors, limited energy, and 30 byte packets, sensor networks cannot afford this luxury. TinySec addresses these extreme resource constraints with careful design; we explore the tradeoffs among different cryptographic primitives and use the inherent sensor network limitations to our advantage when choosing parameters to find a sweet spot for security, packet overhead, and resource requirements. TinySec is portable to a variety of hardware and radio platforms. Our experimental results on a 36 node distributed sensor network application clearly demonstrate that software based link layer protocols are feasible and efficient, adding less than 10% energy, latency, and bandwidth overhead.

A decade ago as wireless sensor network research took off many researchers in the field denounced the use of IP as inadequate and in contradiction to the needs of wireless sensor networking. Since then the field has matured, standard links have emerged, and IP has evolved. In this paper, we present the design of a complete IPv6-based network architecture for wireless sensor networks. We validate the architecture with a production-quality implementation that incorporates many techniques pioneered in the sensor network community, including duty-cycled link protocols, header compression, hop-by-hop forwarding, and efficient routing with effective link estimation. In addition to providing interoperability with existing IP devices, this implementation was able to achieve an average duty-cycle of 0.65%, average per-hop latency of 62ms, and a data reception rate of 99.98 % over a period of 4 weeks in a real-world home-monitoring application where each node generates one application packet per minute. Our results outperform existing systems that do not adhere to any particular standard or architecture. In light of this demonstration of full IPv6 capability, we review the central arguments that led the field away from IP. We believe that the presence of an architecture, specifically an IPv6-based one, provides a strong foundation for wireless sensor networks going forward.

Abstract. Wireless Sensor Networks are extremely vulnerable against any kind of internal or external attacks, due to several factors such as resource-constrained nodes and lack of tamper-resistant packages. As a result, security must be an important factor to have in mind when designing the infrastructure and protocols of sensor networks. In this paper we survey the “state-of-the-art ” security issues in sensor networks and highlight the open areas of research. 1

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Abstract—Wireless sensor networking remains one of the most exciting and challenging research domains of our time. As technology progresses, so do the capabilities of sensor networks. Limited only by what can be technologically sensed, it is envisaged that wireless sensor networks will play an important part in our daily lives in the foreseeable future. Privy to many types of sensitive information, both sensed and disseminated, there is a critical need for security in a number of applications related to this technology. Resulting from the continuous debate over the most effective means of securing wireless sensor networks, this paper considers a number of the security architectures employed, and proposed, to date, with this goal in sight. They are presented such that the various characteristics of each protocol are easily identifiable to potential network designers, allowing a more informed decision to be made when implementing a security protocol for their intended application. Authentication is the primary focus, as the most malicious attacks on a network are the work of imposters, such as DOS attacks, packet insertion etc. Authentication can be defined as a security mechanism, whereby, the identity of a node in the network can be identified as a valid node of the network. Subsequently, data authenticity can be achieved; once the integrity of the message sender/receiver has been established.

The IEEE wireless standard 802.15.4 gets widespread attention because of its adoption in sensor networks, home automation, and other networked systems. The goal of the project is to implement an en- and decoding block for the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol in GNU Radio, an open source solution for software defined radios. This report will give an insight into the working of GNU Radio and some of its hardware components. Additionally, it gives details about the implementation of the en- and decoding blocks. At the end, we will verify the implementation by sending and receiving messages to and from an actual IEEE 802.15.4 radio chip, the CC2420 from ChipCon, and give a small bandwidth comparison of the two solutions.

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Many wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for medical, military, and control applications require strong security protection of messages. Yet, the algorithms and protocols used must be efficient in space and time due to the constrained

Abstract—Ensuring network security in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) indeed is critical. Due to the data-centric multi-hop communication in WSNs, an essential consideration in the security solutions for WSNs is to ensure security features at the link layer. The link layer security can be implemented in hardware or in software. The existing software based link layer security architectures do not offer configurable security. In this paper, we propose a novel design of link layer security architecture for WSNs. The principal characteristics of the design we propose, is the flexible and configurable architecture, with respect to the actual security attributes demanded by the application. Our design is based on the premise that when the link layer architecture is implemented in software, flexibility and seamless integration of the application code become the prime advantages. We also emphasize that with the increasing computational, storage and bandwidth resources of the sensor nodes, we can get good performance and efficiency from software implementation of link layer architecture also.

The use of wireless technology is continuously gaining interest in industrial automation. With the standardization of the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol, low-power sensor network protocols have been introduced in this field. Recently, we investigated the real-time communication capabilities of this protocol. This study is now extended by incorporating the security mechanisms as provided by the protocol standard. In contrast to other papers, which studied the effectiveness of these security techniques, we are interested in whether the real-time capabilities are affected by encryption and message authentication and to which extend. Based on extensive simulations, we investigated the interdependency of protocol parameters and available security options. The results can be used for optimally selecting such parameters according to the quality of service requirements of the application scenario. 1.