ACKDs: An Authenticated Combinatorial Key Distribution Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, sensor nodes generally cooperate with each other in collecting sensing data and in-network processing according to the group communication model. Key distribution is at the heart of secure group communications. In this paper, we present a scalable, efficient and authenticated scheme for group key distribution. The proposed scheme is based on a combinatorial exclusion basis system (EBS) for efficiency and one way hash chains for authentication. It guarantees an authenticated group rekeying procedure and is efficient in terms of storage, communication and computation overheads.