A Secure Data Aggregation Scheme Based on Appropriate Cryptographic Primitives in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy cost of transmitting a single bit of information is approximately the same as that needed for processing a thousand operations in a typical sensor node. Thus, a practical way to prolong a wireless sensor network lifetime is to reduce the sensor energy consumption in data transmissions. Data aggregation is an efficient way to minimize energy consumption on sensors. In this paper, we propose a practical secure data aggregation scheme, Sen-SDA, based on an additive homomorphic encryption scheme, an identity-based signature scheme, and a batch verification technique with an algorithm for filtering injected false data. We then investigate the feasibility of our scheme using low-cost microcontrollers choosing two popular IEEE 802.15.4-compliant wireless sensor network hardware platforms, MICAz and Tmote Sky, used in real-life deployments.