Security Requirements in Brief - Sensor Networks

• Confidentiality
• Sensitive information is well protected and not revealed to unauthorized third parties.The confidentiality objective is required in sensors’ environment to protect information traveling between the sensor nodes of the network or between the sensors and the base station from disclosure, since an adversary having the appropriate equipment may eavesdrop on the communication.

• Authentication
• Verify the identity of the participants in a communication, distinguishing in this way legitimate users from intruders. n the case of sensor networks, it is essential for each sensor node and base station to have the ability to verify that the data received was really send by a trusted sender and not by an adversary that tricked legitimate nodes into accepting false data.
• Integrity
• Danger of getting information altered when exchanged.
• Freshness
• One of the many attacks launched against sensor networks is the message replay attack where an adversary may capture messages exchanged between nodes and replay them later to cause confusion to the network. So make sure that the messages are fresh when they are received.
• Secure Management
• Need secure management on base station level; since sensor nodes communication ends up at the base station.
• Availability
• Availability ensures that services and information can be accessed at the time that they are required. In sensor networks there are many risks that could result in loss of availability such as sensor node capturing and denial of service attacks. Lack of availability may affect the operation of many critical real time applications like those in the healthcare sector that require a 24 / 7 operation that could even result in the loss of life.
• Quality of Service
• Security mechanisms must be lightweight so that the overhead caused for example by encryption must be minimized and not affect the performance of the network. Performance and quality in sensor networks involve the timely delivery of data to prevent for example propagation of pollution and the accuracy with which the data reported match what is actually occurring in their environment.
  

These cane be pointed out as basic security requirements for Sensor Networks and there may be more depending on the nature of the sensor network we will be discussing.

Self-Organizing Sensor Networks

Self-organizing sensor networks may be built from sensor nodes that may spontaneously create impromptu network, assemble the network themselves, dynamically adapt to device failure and degradation, manage movement of sensor nodes, and react to changes in task and network requirements. Reconfigurable smart sensor nodes enable sensor devices to be self-aware, self-reconfigurable and autonomous. The main benefits of these features are:

1. Support tactical and surveillance applications using reconfiguurable sensor network nodes that are capable of forming impromptu network, being deployed incrementally, and assembling themselves without central administration
2. Provide capabilities for sensor networks to adapt dynamically to device failure and degradation and changes in task and network requirements
3. Integrate various application-specific network and system services provided by mixed types of sensor nodes and embedded defense applications