Security Issues and Solutions in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks have gained considerable attention in the past few years. They have found application domains in battlefield communication, homeland security, pollution sensing and traffic monitoring. As such, there has been an increasing need to define and develop simulation frameworks for carrying out high-fidelity WSN simulation. In this paper, we identify the threats and vulnerabilities to WSNs and summarize the defense methods based on the networking protocol layer analysis first. Then we give a holistic overview of security issues. These issues are divided into seven categories: cryptography, key management, attack detections and preventions, secure routing, secure location security, secure data fusion, and other security issues. Along the way we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of current secure schemes in each category. In addition, we also summarize the techniques and methods used in these categories, and point out the open research issues and directions in each area. keywords—Sensor networks, Security, Survey, key management, Attack detections and preventions, Secure routing, Secure location, Secure data aggregation, Node compromise.