Mutual authentication architecture in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor network (WSN, Wireless Sensor Network) is a kind of autonomous network with sensor nodes. It is different from traditional RFID system that the WSN is through the distribution of sensor nodes in different locations to monitor environmental conditions. The collected data from sensor nodes were sent back to the base station for further analysis and processing to compensate the shortage of traditional RFID system. Because the WSN itself transmit messages through the wireless communication media, the attacker can access to make anonymous connections or speculation sent the message is vulnerable to eavesdropping, interception and tampering. It is therefore very important to protect the confidentiality of information and privacy for WSN network. To enhance the security and privacy, a proposed mask function is used to establish mutual authentication protocol for WSN application. The simulation results of the proposed mutual authentication protocol are presented. The hardware verification of the proposed mask function is demonstrated on Altera DE2 demo board.