DVD: A Secure Unicast Based Pairwise Key Generation Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Secure communications among large numbers of wireless sensor nodes that are randomly scattered in an environment is necessary to avoid unauthorized access to data. Secure communication among sensor nodes requires pairwise key distribution prior to the actual data transmission. In this work, we consider pairwise key generation and distribution problem in wireless sensor networks where large amount of resource limited wireless sensor nodes are randomly scattered around. Unlike most other schemes, our scheme does not require the sensor nodes to broadcast and store a key chain in their memory from a universal key space. The individual and the common pair wise keys are generated and unicasted inside the network. Simulation and results indicate that there is a significant decrease in the transmission cost and storage cost by the sensor nodes.