Security-Enhanced Reprogramming with XORs Coding in Wireless Sensor Networks

Depeng Chen, Daojing He, Sammy Chan

Abstract: Reprogramming is an important function required by wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Due to the openness of WSNs, more and more researchers pay attention to the security aspect of reprogramming, but confidentiality is often ignored in this process. However, in some special applications such as battlefield, sending messages demand high levels of confidentiality. Several protocols address this issue, but they use relatively complex cryptography methods, which consume more computational resources and energy. Moreover, those approaches require packets arrive at the receiver in order. However, out-of-order tolerance is often a required feature in some harsh environment. In this paper, we propose an efficient scheme to ensure confidentiality of reprogramming and out-of-order packet delivery can be tolerated. To enhance the confidentiality of code image, we design an encode-then-encrypt scheme. To mitigate the DoS attacks against digital signature packets, we provide an energy-efficient mechanism.