Analysis of key management in wireless sensor networks

A multitude of wireless sensor networks exist today in various fields, each having a specific objective in mind. Based on the objectives for each network, the security concerns can be different, dependent on such factors as the level of secrecy of the data being captured, the amount of computation done to the captured data, and the criticality of the data being available when needed. This paper aims to identify the various types of WSNs in existence today, review some of the key management schemes proposed by the community, and map each type of WSN to a set of these key management schemes that would be ideal to handle the security requirements for that network. Through our research, we aide in solving the question as to whether or not there exists any specific security concerns which are prevalent in a majority of WSNs in use today.