Abstract:

Broadcast authentication is a critical security service in sensor networks, since it allows a sender to broadcast messages to multiple nodes in a secure way. In wireless sensor networks, the broadcast authentication schemes based on message authentication code, like μTESLA and MμTESLA, have some disadvantages. Recent research results have shown that bilinear pairing based cryptography is applicable on resourceconstrained sensor nodes. This paper introduces an efficient identitybased certificateless short signature scheme. The size of signature generated by this scheme is approximately 160bit long, which is the shortest signature so far. And the computation cost is much less than that of other public key signatures. It also provides the feature that it can authenticate the broadcast messages from multibasestations. Based on the MICA2DOT platform, the energy consumptions on communications and computation are analyzed. And the protocol’s other performances are also analyzed. The protocol proposed in this paper can effectively reduce resource cost and satisfy some cardinal properties of broadcast authentication, so it adapts the characteristics of wireless sensor networks.

Key words: wireless sensor network；broadcast authentication；identity；short signature；bilinear pairing