Secure and Distributed Reprogramming Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks using Identity-Based Short Signature Scheme

Wireless reprogramming in a wireless sensor network (WSN) is the process of uploading a new code image or relevant commands to sensor nodes or changing the functionality of existing code. As a WSN is usually deployed in hostile environments, so for security reasons every code update must be authenticate to prevent an opponent from installing malicious code in the network. A secure and distributed reprogramming protocol named SDRP is the first distributed reprogramming protocol for WSNs. SDRP is based on distributed reprogramming approach that allows multiple authorized network users to simultaneously and directly reprogram sensor nodes without involving the base station. However, in this paper, the identity-based signature scheme has been chosen, which is significantly more efficient than all known IBS schemes and requires less computation cost, and the size of signatures is approximate 160 bits which is the shortest identity-based signatures generated so far. Thus in order to further improve the security and efficiency of SDRP, identity-based short signature scheme can be directly employed in SDRP.