Security issues in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor network consists of densely populated nodes connected to one another. In a typical sensor network environment, sensor nodes communicate with one or more base stations. Wireless sensor network is widely used in different areas such as agriculture, healthcare, defense, and other research areas. These areas differ in term of their respective security requirements. Areas such as agriculture demand less security, whereas defense and healthcare require more security. Resource constraints of sensor nodes make it complicated to implement classical security approaches in a wireless sensor network. This report overviews the existing literature on security issues in a wireless sensor network. In this report, security requirements are defined in a typical sensor network. Possible attacks are shown on different communication layers along with their mitigations. The feasibility of cryptographic measures is also examined in order to enforce security in the wireless sensor network. We discuss secure key exchange techniques to exchange cryptographic keys between sensor nodes and the base station. Additionally, The area of adaptive security is touched before concluding this report.

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