A Comprehensive Survey on ID-Based Cryptography for Wireless Sensor Networks

Digital Object Identifier 10.32754/JMT.2018.1.10 57 Abstract—Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are considered to be the eyes and ears of the Internet of Things (IoT). Whereas sensor boards are becoming cheaper and a lot more diverse, WSN and IoT applications are on a steady upward trend. This leads to an increasing need to ensure the security of data collected and transmitted by these types of applications and networks. Because sensor nodes are still relatively simple, highly constrained devices, security becomes very difficult to implement. While lightweight cryptographic algorithms are still under close supervision by NIST, identity based cryptography (IBC) holds its ground as a viable security approach for WSN based applications. In this paper we are presenting a thorough analysis on identity based cryptographic primitives, techniques, implementation variants and issues. Throughout the paper we are discussing all of these aspects in relation to the specificity of WSN based network infrastructures and applications.