Multi level secure LEACH protocol model using NS-3

Secure Communication has become an important aspect in wireless sensor network applications such as military, medical and industrial fields. The nodes in WSN have limited computational ability and limited energy. These device constraints dictate the choice of various crypto primitives for the security model. This work considers a stream cipher algorithm, RC-4, which is easy to implement on the sensor devices and fast enough and hence it is chosen for the performance evaluation of multi level secure LEACH. In general, the RC-4 uses a static key for the encryption and decryption processes. This static key is replaced by a dynamic key, which is computed using the Toeplitz hash function in making the security model further sturdier. Also a multi-level LEACH protocol model is developed using NS-3 simulation platform to evaluate the overheads associated with the proposed security model.