Fast authentication in wireless sensor networks

Broadcast authentication is a fundamental security service in wireless sen-
sor networks (WSNs). Although symmetric-key-based μTESLA-like schemes
were employed due to their energy efficiency, they all suffer from DoS attacks
resulting from the nature of delayed message authentication. Recently, sev-
eral public-key-based schemes were proposed to achieve immediate broadcast
authentication that may significantly improved security strength. However,
while the public-key-based schemes obviate the security vulnerability inher-
ent to symmetric-key-based μTESLA-like schemes, their signature verifica-
tion is time-consuming. Thus, speeding up signature verification is a problem
of considerable practical importance, especially in resource-constrained en-
vironments. This paper exploits the cooperation among sensor nodes to ac-
celerate the signature verification of vBNN-IBS, a pairing-free identity-based
signature with reduced signature size. We demonstrate through on exten-
sive performance evaluation study that the accelerated vBNN-IBS achieves
the longest network lifetime compared to both the traditional vBNN-IBS and
the accelerated ECDSA schemes. The accelerated vBNN-IBS runs 66% faster
than the traditional signature verification method. Results from theoretical
analysis, simulation, and real-world experimentation on a MICAz platform
are provided to validate our claims.