Security analysis of hybrid security mechanisms for heterogeneous sensor networks

An efficient hybrid security mechanism (called LIGER) for heterogeneous sensor networks (HSNs) was presented by Traynor et al. LIGER is composed of two subschemes: LION and TIGER. However, this paper present the LIGER has some designs and security flaws, and cannot be advocated for the real-time critical applications. We have identified that LION and TIGER are vulnerable to the impersonation attacks, gateway-bypass attacks, denial-of-service attacks, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Moreover, both schemes do not care about the dynamic session key which is an indispensable security requirement for the real-time heterogeneous sensor networks.