Balancing security against performance in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks

Due to its extreme vulnerability, satisfactory security provisioning in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks (WAHSN) is crucial; however, often a highly secure mechanism inevitably consumes a rather large amount of system resources, which in turn may unintentionally cause a security service denial of service (SSDoS) attack. The scheme proposed in this paper sets out a framework which is capable of deploying different combinations of security services to satisfy different security needs at different times for different applications. Consequently, a suitable security service is provisioned in an adaptive way to achieve the maximum overall security-services against network-performance-services throughout the course of WAHSN operation. Furthermore, additional security capability can be achieved via the self-adaptive security services hopping.