Performance evaluation of key disclosure delay-based schemes in wireless sensor networks

Broadcast source authentication is a critical security service in wireless sensor networks which is still in its infancy. This service allows senders to broadcast messages to multiple receivers in a secure way. This paper evaluates the integration of staggered authentication in multi-level μTesla source authentication protocol called staggered multilevel μTesla. These two protocols are evaluated in terms of authentication delay, authentication probability, number of forged packets in the receiver's buffer, delay of forged packets in the receiver's buffer, memory, and energy consumption overhead. Simulation results show that these two protocols introduce negligible overhead without impeding the system performance. Moreover, staggered multi-level μTesla achieves better performance compared to multi-level μTesla, when reducing the average number and the delay of forged packets in the receiver's buffer.