A Cluster-Based Multilevel Security Model for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network is one of the fundamental components of the Internet of Things. With the growing use of wireless sensor networks in commercial and military, data security is a critical problem in these applications. Considerable security works have been studied. However, the majority of these works based on the scenarios that the sensitivities of data in the networks are in the same. In this paper, we present a cluster-based multilevel security model that enforces information flow from low security level to high security level. The design of the model is motivated by the observation that sensor nodes in numerous applications have different security clearances. In these scenarios, it is not enough for just protecting the data at a single level. The multilevel security mechanism is needed to prevent the information flow from high level nodes to low level nodes. We give the formal description of the model and present a scheme to achieve it. In our model, sensor nodes are grouped into different clusters. In each cluster, the security clearance of sensor nodes must not be higher than the security clearance of the cluster head. We use cryptography techniques to enforce the information flow policy of this model. The higher level nodes can derive the keys of lower level nodes and use the derived key to get the information from lower-level nodes.

abstract

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