Energy-Efficient Key-Management (EEKM) Protocol for Large-Scale Distributed Sensor Networks

The more wireless sensor networks grow, the more effective security mechanisms are needed. This paper suggests a cryptographic key-management protocol, Energy-Efficient Key-Management protocol. Using a location-based group key allocation, the proposed protocol provides the revocation of compromised nodes and energy-efficient rekeying. Our protocol is motivated by the observation that unicast-based rekeying does not satisfy the security requirements of periodic rekeying in wireless sensor networks. Our protocol provides broadcast-based rekeying for low-energy key management and high resilience. In addition, to increase the complexity of encryption keys, the protocol uses a dynamic composition key scheme. Our protocol provides group management protocols for secure group communication. We compared the energy efficiency of our protocol to other protocols with the rekeying and revocation messages and simulated them.