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Abstract—Designing cost-efficient, secure network protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a challenging problem because
sensors are resource-limited wireless devices. Since the communication cost is the most dominant factor in a sensor’s energy
consumption, we introduce an energy-efficient Virtual Energy-Based Encryption and Keying (VEBEK) scheme for WSNs that
significantly reduces the number of transmissions needed for rekeying to avoid stale keys. In addition to the goal of saving energy,
minimal transmission is imperative for some military applications of WSNs where an adversary could be monitoring the wireless
spectrum. VEBEK is a secure communication framework where sensed data is encoded using a scheme based on a permutation code
generated via the RC4 encryption mechanism. The key to the RC4 encryption mechanism dynamically changes as a function of the
residual virtual energy of the sensor. Thus, a one-time dynamic key is employed for one packet only and different keys are used for the
successive packets of the stream. The intermediate nodes along the path to the sink are able to verify the authenticity and integrity of the
incoming packets using a predicted value of the key generated by the sender’s virtual energy, thus requiring no need for specific rekeying
messages. VEBEK is able to efficiently detect and filter false data injected into the network by malicious outsiders. The VEBEK
framework consists of two operational modes (VEBEK-I and VEBEK-II), each of which is optimal for different scenarios. In VEBEK-I,
each node monitors its one-hop neighbors where VEBEK-II statistically monitors downstream nodes. We have evaluated VEBEK’s
feasibility and performance analytically and through simulations. Our results show that VEBEK, without incurring transmission overhead
(increasing packet size or sending control messages for rekeying), is able to eliminate malicious data from the network in an energyefficient
manner. We also show that our framework performs better than other comparable schemes in the literature with an overall
60-100 percent improvement in energy savings without the assumption of a reliable medium access control layer.
Index Terms—Security, WSN security, VEBEK, virtual energy-based keying, resource-constrained devices.
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1 INTRODUCTION
RAPIDLY developed WSN technology is no longer nascent
and will be used in a variety of application scenarios.
Typical application areas include environmental, military,
and commercial enterprises [1]. For example, in a battlefield
scenario, sensors may be used to detect the location of
enemy sniper fire or to detect harmful chemical agents
before they reach troops. In another potential scenario,
sensor nodes forming a network under water could be used
for oceanographic data collection, pollution monitoring,
assisted navigation, military surveillance, and mine reconnaissance
operations. Future improvements in technology
will bring more sensor applications into our daily lives and
the use of sensors will also evolve from merely capturing
data to a system that can be used for real-time compound
event alerting [2].
From a security standpoint, it is very important to
provide authentic