An Authenticated Group Key Distribution Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), group key distribution is the core of secure communications since sensor nodes usually form groups and cooperate with each other in sensing data collection and in-network processing. In this paper, we present a scalable authenticated scheme for group key distribution based on a combinatorial exclusion basis system (EBS) for effciency and one-way hash chains for authentication. The proposed scheme guarantees a lightweight authenticated group key updating procedure and is effcient in terms of storage, communication and computation overheads.