Advancing WSN physical security adopting TPM-based architectures

Abstract

Cyber Physical Systems typically operate unattended in hostile outdoor environments. A lot of effort has has been made to protect the communication between sensing nodes and the processing infrastructure. However, with regards to physical protection of a node, assessing the integrity of its hardware/software is a challenging issue. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a node architecture which makes use of Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to perform cryptographic operations in a trustworthy manner. TPM builds a chain of trust which enforces a trustability relationship among the node's components. In such context, the node will function only if all the hardware and software configurations have been verified by means of cryptographic operations. Moreover, using tamper resistant hardware we will ensure that the cryptographic keys do not leave a secure perimeter.