A Simple Lightweight Encryption Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Security is a critical issue in many sensor network applications. A number of security mechanisms are developed for wireless sensor networks based on classical cryptography. AES, RC5, SkipJack and XXTEA are some symmetric-key encryption algorithms that are deployed in sensor network environments. However, these algorithms have their own weakness, such as vulnerable to chosen-plaintext attack, brute force attack and computational complexity. We propose an energy efficient lightweight encryption scheme based on pseudorandom bit sequence generated by elliptic curve operations. We present experimental results of our proposed algorithm employed on real sensor nodes operating in TinyOS. We also discuss the security strength of our algorithm by presenting the security analysis of various tests and cryptanalytic attacks.