Research On Broadcast Authentication Protocols In Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks can obtain information real-time, collect and disseminate the information, and they contain sensor nodes which have tiny size, low-power and limited ability of computation. Since the wireless nodes are deployed in open environment and communicated in wireless way, wireless sensor networks have security problems in the practical application, especially in the fields of fire altering, military target tracking, safety monitoring and remote medical treatments, and in this fields the requirement for security is stricter. Broadcast is the main way for communication in wireless sensor network, and broadcast authentication provides security for broadcast messages. It ensures source authentication and message integrity, so it is necessary of broadcast authentication in wireless sensor networks. When using the broadcast authentication in the wireless sensor networks, it can solve the security problems that in the processing of message transmission the attackers have eavesdropping, modify, forgery, replay attack and so on.Broadcast authentication protocols can be divided into two categories: the broadcast authentication protocols based in message authentication code(MAC) and the broadcast authentication protocols based in digital signature. Because of the immediately authentication, the protocols based in digital signature is more secure than the protocols based in MAC. The broadcast authentication protocols based in digital signature also can be divided into two categories: one-time signature and signature based in public key cryptography. One-time signature broadcast authentication protocols limit the number of the broadcast messages; the signature progress is complex; and the size of the signature is very big, and this weakness causes high computer and communication overload. The protocols based in public key cryptography signature contain certificate-based authentication protocols and ID-based authentication protocols. In those certificate-based broadcast authentication protocols, the transmission of the certificate causes a large amount of energy and the storage of the certificate caused much space. ID-based broadcast authentication protocols eliminate certificate costs, and this protocols have a high efficient than this protocols based in certificate. In this paper, the ID-based broadcast authentication protocols are discussed. The main results are summarized as follows:1) An improved efficient ID-based broadcast authentication scheme with message recovery is proposed. This scheme is based in the ID-based signature scheme, adopting message recovery technology, and the proposed scheme is suitable for the broadcast authentication for wireless sensor networks. This scheme is making fixed length message hidden in the broadcast message packets via the process of signature and will recovery the original message by the process of verifying. Because of the message is not alone with the packets, the total length of signature packets is reduced. This paper analysis the scheme security, at the same time its communication and computer overhead are simple analyzed. Therefore, it comes to a conclusion that the proposed scheme makes sure source authentication and message integrity, and is proved secure against existential forgery against adaptive chosen-message attack and identity attacks, and this scheme has improved the communication bandwidth and communication consumption, so the communication bandwidth and communication consumption is reduced.2) This paper also proposes an improved efficient ID-based broadcast authentication scheme with partial message recovery. It is based in the preceding scheme that can signature the fixed length of message. This scheme can signature arbitrary message and recovery the original message via the process of verifying, because in the practical applications the message always is not fixed, so it is more suitable for wireless sensor networks. This scheme can also reduce the total length of signature packets, so the communication bandwidth and communication consumption is reduced.