On Efficient Data Integrity and Data Origin Authentication for Wireless Sensor Networks Utilising Block Cipher Design Techniques

Analysis of the generic attacks and countermeasures for block cipher based message authentication code algorithms (MAC) in sensor applications is undertaken; the conclusions are used in the design of two new MAC constructs quicker block chaining MAC1 (QBC-MAC1) and quicker block chaining MAC2 (QBC-MAC2). Using software simulation we show that our new constructs point to improvements in usage of CPU instruction clock cycle and energy requirement when benchmarked against the de facto cipher block chaining MAC (CBC-MAC) based construct used in the TinySec security protocol for wireless sensor networks.