Using Trusted Computing Technology to Facilitate Security Enforcement in Wireless Sensor Networks

Security enforcement in wireless sensor networks is by no means an easy task, due to the inherent resource-constrained nature of sensor nodes. To facilitate security enforcement, we propose to incorporate more powerful high-end Security Enforcement Facilitators (SEFs) into wireless sensor networks. In particular, the SEFs are equipped with TCG-compliant Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) to protect cryptographic secrets, perform authenticated booting and attest their platform state to a remote base station. As such, the SEFs act as online trusted third parties to effectively monitor the states of sensor nodes, help in key management, simplify secure routing, and facilitate access control.