Abstract:

Broadcast authentication is a critical security service in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). The broadcast authentication mechanisms that have been proposed in WSN are obvious different in their security strength and overhead. In this paper, an efficient Self-Adaptive Broadcast Authentication (SABA) mechanism in WSN is proposed, which takes the dynamic change of the system risk in application into consideration. The SABA mechanism includes two parts. The off-line part selects a group of protocols for sensor nodes. The online part generates protocol transition rules with risk changes. By making use of the protocol utility, derived from the analysis of system risk and the evaluation of protocol security strength and performance, the best protocol under various system risks is selected as the current protocol. A case study is used to demonstrate the construction of a SABA protocol. Analysis and experiments show the efficiency of the SABA.

Key words: computer applications, wireless sensor networks, self-adaptive, broadcast authentication, risk, utility