A Model for selecting security protocols for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

ABSTRACT The process of mapping security requirements to the most appropriate security protocol has over the time proved a great challenge. Though there are various security mechanisms designed to curb security threats, they come with various properties and therefore the choice of the best security protocol for a given application becomes quite complex. To ease the process of mapping security requirement of sensor applications to security protocol, security environments for WSNs have been defined formally. There are numerous WSNs applications being developed day to day, ranging from simple environmental monitoring e.g. collecting of temperatures in an agricultural farm to complex applications like for monitoring battle field. Therefore, this research dissertation objective was to enable selection of best security protocol that falls under a certain security class for the various existing WSNs applications and applications to be developed in the future. The research endeavored to identify and evaluate the security protocols that are practically used in WSNs and to identify the best tool to be used in simulation process, and finally to validate selection of security protocols.