EdgeCipherVault: A Hybrid Encryption-based Model for Securing Data in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are increasingly deployed in mission-critical environments where data confidentiality, integrity, and availability are essential. However, traditional crypto models either waste power or lack in providing end to end security. This study introduces EdgeCipherVault as a novel hybrid encryption based model, which is targeted for the security of WSN data within a threetier structure of sensor, Edge and cloud layers. The system uses a layered strategy of encryption: Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for secure key exchange, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for payload encryption, and HMAC-SHA256 for message integrity. Combined with a lightweight anomaly detection engine and secure edge based data aggregation EdgeCipherVault considerably reduces packet loss and energy and enhances the threat detection. The performance of the proposed system was measured against nine existing systems using metrics such as encryption latency, throughput, energy consumption, intrusion detection accuracy and packet loss rate. Results show that EdgeCipherVault delivers 21.3 ms encryption latency, 88.7 Kbps throughput and 10.5J energy consumption, 97.6% intrusion detection accuracy and 2.9% packet loss rate which is better than all benchmark models. The real-time secure WSN deployments across wide range of application domains can be concluded to be a solution for the framework due to the adaptability of the framework to edge environments and lowpower devices.