Security Issues for Distributed Sensor Networks

A distributed sensor network or DSN is an autonomous system of thousands of mobile devices connected by wireless links. The devices are free to move randomly and organize themselves arbitrarily; thus, the network’s wireless topology may change rapidly and unpredictably. This paper gives an overview of the security aspects of these sensor networks, consisting of ultra-low power devices, with limited communication and computational means. The security demands for these networks are similar to those of more common networks such as the Internet: authentication, privacy, robustness, etc. However, the properties and design constraints of a security architecture for low power ad-hoc DSNs are very different. Keywords— Sensor Networks, Security, Cryptography