A Quantitative Survivability Evaluation Model for Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is vulnerable to security attacks due to the broadcast nature of transmission and the limited computation and communication capabilities of the sensor nodes. Many key agreement schemes are developed to enable encryption and authentication among sensor nodes to protect confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the communications and computations of WSNs. It is crucial to build a model to evaluate these schemes with regard to survivability of a WSN. In this paper, we propose a quantitative evaluation model for a typical pre-distribution key management scheme. Specifically, we evaluate the survivability of a WSN with regard to its three major attributes: resilience, resistance, and robustness. Simulation results are reported showing how a WSN become survivable and how it can be improved