Security data management process and its impact on smart cities' wireless sensor networks

During the last few years critical advancements in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have highlighted respective platforms as a prominent technology able to tackle various challenges posed by Smart-City application scenarios. However, a critical area that has not been adequately taken into consideration concerns security provision necessity in conjunction to its impact on real WSN platform communication efficiency. Consequently, specific practices must be defined in alignment with, up to date, regulations and legislation. In this paper, a two-fold contribution is made. On one hand, a comprehensive study is presented focusing on practices that a real WSN must follow so as to comply with the current security and privacy regulations and legislations. On the other hand, a system level evaluation is presented emphasizing on the effect of security algorithms utilization upon the behavior and performance of a prominent real WSN environment. This evaluation is based on experimentations using a prominent WSN platform enabling algorithms offering high level security features while varying a wide range of critical network parameters.