TinySec: a Link Layer Security Architecture for Wireless Sensor Networks

We introduce TinySec, the first fully-implemented link layer security architecture for wireless sensor networks. In our design, we leverage recent lessons learned from design vulnerabilities in security protocols for other wireless networks such as 802.11b and GSM. Conventional security protocols tend to be conservative in their security guarantees, typically adding 16--32 bytes of overhead. With small memories, weak processors, limited energy, and 30 byte packets, sensor networks cannot afford this luxury. TinySec addresses these extreme resource constraints with careful design; we explore the tradeoffs among different cryptographic primitives and use the inherent sensor network limitations to our advantage when choosing parameters to find a sweet spot for security, packet overhead, and resource requirements. TinySec is portable to a variety of hardware and radio platforms. Our experimental results on a 36 node distributed sensor network application clearly demonstrate that software based link layer protocols are feasible and efficient, adding less than 10% energy, latency, and bandwidth overhead.