Hashed Random Key Pre-distribution Scheme for Large Heterogeneous Sensor Networks

Many wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of a large number of distributed sensor nodes that are batteries powered, vulnerable to tampering, and equipped with limited computational capabilities and memory. These characteristics render WSNs facing many security threats, which require cryptographic security mechanisms for secure communication, key revocation and management of security issues arising from the addition of new nodes. In this paper, we propose a key management scheme to meet the security requirements of wireless sensor networks. The scheme relies on the theory of random graph to build a fully secure connectivity for distributed sensor nodes. It uses heterogeneous structure to limit ranges of attacks, and utilizes hash chains to realize authentication of pool keys and broadcast messages of auxiliary nodes. The security and network connectivity characteristics supported by the key management scheme are discussed and simulation experiments are presented.