Analysis and Evaluation of SECOS, a Protocol for Energy Efficient and Secure Communication in Sensor Networks
Author
Issa Khalil, Saurabh Bagchi, Ness Shroff
Abstract
Wireless sensor networks are increasingly being used in applications where the communication between nodes needs to be
protected from eavesdropping and tampering. Such protection is typically provided using techniques from symmetric key
cryptography. The protocols in this domain suffer from one or more of the following problems  weak security guarantees
if some nodes are compromised, lack of scalability, high energy overhead for key management, and increased end-to-end
data latency. In this paper, we propose a protocol called SECOS that mitigates these problems in static sensor networks.
SECOS divides the sensor field into control groups each with a control node. Data exchange between nodes within a control
group happens through the mediation of the control head which provides the common key. The keys are refreshed
periodically and the control nodes are changed periodically to enhance security. SECOS enhances the survivability of the
network by handling compromise and failures of control nodes. It provides the guarantee that the communication between
any two sensor nodes remains secure despite the compromise of any number of other nodes in the network. The
experiments based on a simulation model show a seven time reduction in energy overhead and a 50% reduction in latency
compared to SPINS, which is one of the state-of-the-art protocols for key management in sensor networks.
Journal
Elsevier Ad-HocNetworks Journal
School
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Affiliation
Purdue University
Publication Date
2007-04-01
Keywords
sensor network security, key management, symmetric cryptography, energy efficient key distribution, key