A novel key pre-distribution scheme using one-way hash chain and bivariate polynomial for wireless sensor networks

Security is a big challenge when wireless sensor networks are deployed in a hostile environment. Due to the computational and storage overheads, traditional asymmetric cryptographic protocols are not suitable for the resource-constrained wireless sensor nodes. Several key pre-distribution schemes have been proposed in literature to establish pairwise key between sensor nodes, but most of which only work for small-scale networks due to their linearly increased communication overhead and key storage overhead. Furthermore, some existing key pre-distribution schemes are not secure when the number of compromised sensor nodes exceeds a threshold value. In this paper a novel key pre-distribution scheme was put forward based on one-way hash chain and bivariate polynomial, which can afford sufficient security no matter how many sensor nodes are compromised compared with existing typical key pre-distribution schemes. Better network connectivity, lower key storage overhead and lower communication overhead can also be achieved by the proposed scheme.