A lightweight key distribution mechanism for wireless sensor networks
Sirisha R. Medidi, Muralidhar Medidi, Lynsey E. Compton-Drake, Jiong Wang, Ray Robert Rydberg · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2008
Security is of critical importance for many potential applications of wireless sensor networks. In order to maintain secure communication throughout the network, it is of vital importance to maintain encryption key freshness by regularly distributing new keys to all nodes. Distribution of group keys used to encrypt broadcast communication is expensive, as it is generally achieved via flooding, which taxes the limited battery life available to each node. We propose LKDT, a lightweight encryption key distribution tree building mechanism with an optional Multi- Coverage Reduction (MCR) stage to provide a framework by which to distribute keys while reducing power consumption and broadcast coverage overlap. Additionally, LKDT can configure itself quickly, allowing the base station to begin updating keys shortly after deployment.