Adaptive Security Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are used in a large number of tracking and monitoring applications. The level of security required by an application depends on the threat level, available resources, and security requirements. In this paper, we present a modular and extensible framework, called Adaptive Security Framework (ASF) that adjusts security to the detected threats, available energy and memory, and application requirements. The framework includes three types of components: the Context modules, the Security Adaptation module, and the Security layer. The security level is modified according to the output of the Context modules, and it is then used to enable the appropriate security primitives available in the Security layer. We evaluate our solution in multiple attack scenarios, we determine its resource consumption and we compare it to other State of the Art solutions. Our framework has the following advantages: it takes into consideration the context, but also allows for manual reconfiguration, it has a global, aggregated view of the context, it provides different authentication and encryption algorithms associated to each security level, it is extensible and modular.