Tree-based Key Management Scheme for Heterogeneous Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are used in many applications like battlefield, patient monitoring, emergence response information and environmental monitoring. To achieve security in WSN, it is important to be able to encrypt the messages sent between sensor nodes. It is required to agree upon a common key before encrypting the messages. The key management task is challenging due to resource constrained nature of WSN. In this paper we are proposing a tree based key management scheme for heterogeneous sensor networks. The proposed scheme handles various events like node addition, node compromise and key refresh at regular intervals. The scheme supports revocation of the compromised nodes and the energy efficient rekeying.