Key Management Mechanisms in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are wireless ad hoc networks of tiny sensor nodes increasingly deployed for multiple civilian and military applications, including patient monitoring, wildlife monitoring, battlefield surveillance, enemy tracking, etc. Like other computer networks, WSNs must be provided of security services such as key management, confidentiality, integrity and authentication. However, the nature of WSNs and their operational requirements introduce new exciting challenges on security design. Key management is a fundamental security service and a hot topic of research in security for WSNs. In this paper, we will review the state of the art on key management for WSNs and provide a glimpse on current and future developments in this area.