Pair-Wise Key Management Scheme Based on Master Key Updating and Post Deployment in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel in-situ pair-wise key establishment scheme based on master key updating and knowledge of post deployment for large-scale distributed wireless sensor networks. Our scheme aims at achieving a satisfying key sharing probability among sensors with low memory overhead. Our scheme employs location information of post deployment to compute pair-wise key in-situ. In our scheme, even if the master key is compromised, an adversary can only exploit a very small number of keys nearby the compromised node, while other keys in the network remain safe, which overcomes the flaws of traditional pair-wise key establishment schemes based on global master key in wireless sensor network. Analysis shows that our scheme exhibits strong resilience against node capture attacks and achieves a high key-sharing probability (close to 1) at the expense of a small amount of memory overhead.