Cryptographic Data Security for Reliable Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are widely utilized in a variety of applications. Attackers might interfere with equipment, and eavesdrop on conversations. Attackers can also modify the data which has been communicated or connect unauthorized devices to the network if such devices are deployed in the physical environment. To ensure WSN security, messages exchanged between communicating nodes must be encrypted, and for encryption and decryption, the network must store a key. Consequently, Key management is of significant importance in achieving security in WSN. Obtaining such a key arrangement in a resource-constrained environment is required for secure and energy-efficient data transmission in WSN. Current algorithms have certain security issues, such as vulnerability to plaintext attacks, brute force attacks, side-channel attacks, and computational complexity. Cryptography along with clustering has been found to be a practical and efficient technique to improve the secure and energy-efficient data transmission in WSNs. In this article we have used an asymmetric Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) method for key generation whereas encryption and decryption of data, has been done by a hybrid of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and ECC cryptography A novel algorithm has been developed that incorporates both techniques (Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and ECC cryptography) along with clustering through standard LEACH protocol for improving energy efficiency, data security, and network lifetime. The proposed algorithm has been able to overcome the issue of key exchange that plagues AES, simpler than ECC and more reliable than AES. More significantly, it is able to encounter a variety of security threats including side-channel attacks. The proposed algorithm is better and has been compared to current techniques with respect to time complexity, encryption time and decryption time to demonstrate its efficacy.

Keywords

• Cryptography
• Attacks
• Security
• WSN
• Reliability
• Encryption