Design, implementation and evaluation of a secure and efficient key coordination algorithm for line topology network maintenance for use in maritime wireless sensor networks

There has been a significant increase in the proliferation and implementation of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in different disciplines, including the monitoring of maritime environments, healthcare systems, and industrial sectors. WSNs must regulate different sorts of data transmission such as routing protocols and secure key management protocols. An efficient WSNs architecture must address the capability for remote sensor data management, or instance encrypted transmitting data between sensor nodes. Furthermore, it should have the capability to adapt its sensor members in the network in response to environmental changes, or the condition of sensor nodes. In other words, the key management technique in WSNs should meet several requirements to be efficient. The key management technique for any secure application must provide the required security services; authenticity, confidentiality, integrity, scalability and flexibility. This Thesis presents a symmetric security scheme for a maritime coastal environment monitoring WSN, called Secure and Efficient Key Coordination Algorithm for line topology network maintenance for use in maritime WSNs (SEKCA), which has the aim of addressing a number of WSN security issues. The designed technique provides strong security services and combines the advantages of the various types of current key management schemes for WSNs. The scheme also provides security for travelling packets via individually encrypted links between authenticated neighbours, thus avoiding a reiteration of a global rekeying process. Furthermore, this scheme proposes a dynamic update key based on a trusted node configuration, called a leader node, which works as a trusted third party. The technique has been implemented in real time on a Waspmote test bed sensor platform and the results from both field testing and indoor bench-testing environments are discussed. The contributions of this thesis include: a) a comprehensive study of state-of-the-art WSNs and WSN applications requirements, b) design of SEKCA, c) an efficient implementation of SEKCA on a hardware platform in an outdoor environment, d) SEKCA is evaluated and compared to the other WSN specific key management schemes, and showed that the SEKCA is suitable for future secure WSNs and e) nine peer reviewed publications have resulted from the work.