Data Confidentiality in Secure and Distributed Data Discovery and Dissemination Protocols in WSNs

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are basically distributed networks or a collection of sensor nodes which collect information which are used to analyse physical or environmental conditions. WSNs are usually setup in remote and hostile areas and work in extreme conditions. Applications of WSN include habitat monitoring, industrial applications, battlefield surveillance, smart homes etc. Most of them require regular updating of software in sensor nodes through the wireless channel for efficient management and working. So it is necessary to spread data through the wireless medium after the nodes are deployed. This is known as data dissemination. A data discovery and dissemination protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is responsible for updating configuration parameters of, and distributing management commands to, the sensor nodes. All existing data discovery and dissemination protocols suffer from two drawbacks. First, they are based on the centralized approach; only the base station can distribute data items. Such an approach is not suitable for emergent multi-owner-multi-user WSNs. Second, those protocols were not designed with security in mind and hence adversaries can easily launch attacks to harm the network. This paper proposes the first secure and distributed data discovery and dissemination protocol named DiDrip. It allows the network owners to authorize multiple network users with different privileges to simultaneously and directly disseminate data items to the sensor nodes.  We are also providing data confidentiality in the design of secure and distributed data discovery and dissemination protocols