Initial Key Distribution for Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

In any security design, the initial secret distribution for further key management solution is a major step. In industrial wireless sensor networks also, initial bootstrapping of the trust in the system is a major concern. The plant can be assumed to be a closed system, where only authenticated and trusted users are allowed to enter. However, wireless being the broadcast medium, wireless devices need to validate their identity to join the networks. So, there is a need for importing some initial secret key to the devices, so that they can be authenticated during the joining process. The standards for Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (WirelessHART, ISA100.11a) also have left to the user the initial distribution of the key for joining during device provisioning. In this paper, the current industry practice and the pre-requisite of key distribution in industrial wireless sensor networks is discussed and an outline is presented for future research directions.