A survey on security in wireless sensor networks

Recent advances in electronics and wireless network technologies have offered us access to a new era where wireless sensor networks formed by inter-connected small intelligent sensing devices provide us the possibility to form smart environments. Considering the specialty of wireless sensor network, the security threats and possible countermeasures are quite different from those in Internet and Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). On the one hand, the wireless communication, large scale and possibly human unattended deployment make attacks in wireless sensor networks relatively easier to perform. Furthermore, all features that make sensor nodes cheap and thus sensor network application affordable, such as limited energy resource, limited bandwidth and limited memory, also make many well-developed security mechanisms inappropriate in sensor networks. On the other hand, the user unfriendly interface makes the physical compromise of a sensor node difficult, the relatively simple communication profile makes the intrusion detection easy to perform, and also the redundant deployment makes the new type of network more fault-tolerant. Thus, we need a complete redesign of sensor network security mechanisms from technique to management.