J4 ›› 2010, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (3): 547-553.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1001-2400.2010.03.029

• Original Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Key infection and evolution for sensor networks

LIU Wen-ju1;LIU Zhi-hong2;PEI Qing-qi2,3;YANG Chao2   

  1. (1. School of Computer Tech. and Auto., Tianjin Poly. Univ., Tianjin  300160, China;
    2. Ministry of Education Key Lab. of Computer Network and Information Security, Xidian Univ., Xi'an  710071, China;
    3. Inst. of China Electronic System Engineering Corporation, Beijing  100039, China)
  • Received:2009-03-12 Online:2010-06-20 Published:2010-07-23
  • Contact: LIU Wen-ju E-mail:liuwj@tjpu.edu.cn

Abstract:

To tackle key management in sensor networks, we borrow concepts from natural biological systems to handle this problem, and a lightweight key management scheme which is applicable to smart dust sensor networks, key infection and evolutionm, is proposed. We first propose a probability model to analyze the security of the key infection protocol, and then introduce a new variant of the key infection protocol, Group based Key Infection, to improve its security performance. By combining key infection with a lightweight key pre-distribution scheme, a more secure key distribution scheme, Group based Key Infection with Key Pre-distribution, is proposed. To thwart on-going cryptanalytic attacks, a key evolution scheme with key synchronization is proposed to continuously renew shared keys. Analytical results show that the proposed scheme presents a viable trade-off between security and resource consumption for smart dust sensor networks.

Key words: key evolution, key infection, key management, sensor network