Location-dependent key management protocol for a WSN with a random selected cell reporter

A wireless sensor network (WSN) employed to serve smart city applications is usually located in a vast and vulnerable territory. In order to secure vital and critical information, the security requirements of data confidentiality, authenticity and availability should be guaranteed. One of the leading key management schemes is based on using location information to generate security credentials. However, existing location-dependent schemes have disadvantages related to cell capture caused by a threshold number of nodes (e) being compromised. This paper presents a location-dependent key management protocol with a random selected cell reporter, LKMP-RSCR, where a set of cell reporters are selected randomly by the base station (BS) to provide a third level of report endorsement. In the LKMP-RSCR, an adversary would need to compromise all cell reporters in addition to endorsement (e) nodes to capture a particular cell. The LKMP-RSCR is presented and evaluated using an extensive analysis that shows a significant enhancement achieved in comparison with LEDS and MKMP schemes in terms of data confidentiality (85%), authenticity (35%) and availability (85%).