Enabling security on 6LoWPAN / IPv6 Wireless Sensor Networks

The increasing interest in the development of open-source, IPv6 platforms for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and the Internet of Things (IoT), offers a significant potential ubiquitous monitoring and control. The usage of IPv6 in WSNs enables the integration of sensing applications with the Internet. For relevant goals, we consider security should properly be addressed as an integral part of high-level layers of the protocol stack. This paper describes and evaluates the usage of new compressed 6LoWPAN security headers, with a focus on the link-layer. Leveraging the Contiki operating system for resource constrained devices, along with link-layer security sublayers and IPv6, helpful insight is achieved for evaluation and deployment.