SUMP: a secure unicast messaging protocol for wireless ad hoc sensor networks

: Most wireless ad hoc sensor networks are susceptible to routing level attacks, in which an adversary masquerades as a legitimate node to convince neighbouring nodes that it is the ‘logical’ next hop or is on a ‘better’ path for forwarding packets and arbitrarily drops the packets forwarded by neighbouring nodes. In this paper, we propose a Secure Unicast Messaging Protocol (SUMP) for wireless ad hoc sensor networks to mitigate the threat of routing level attacks. SUMP groups nodes into levels based on hop count to provide hop-by-hop group authentication using Merkle hash trees. This method allows for varied levels of security in accordance with a node’s hop count from the base station and secure, directed unicast communications from the base station to individual nodes. Unlike other such protocols the parent information maintained by a node running SUMP is securely provided by the base station and thus mitigates the threat of the adversary convincing a node to forward throu...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: IJSNET
• Authors: Jeff Janies, Chin-Tser Huang, Nathan L. Johnson, Theodor Richardson
• Keywords: Ad Hoc Sensor, Base Station, IJSNET 2007, Wireless Ad Hoc