Efficient Approach for Securing Message Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks from Node Clone Attack

Objectives: Security is a very decisive factor for Wireless Sensor Networks because of ever growing popularity in the tangible world. These types of resource constrained network suffers from physical attack, i.e. Node clone attack. Methods/Statistical Analysis: In Node clone attack an attacker capture a node, modify it and replicate clone node in WSNs. The main motive of these clone nodes to obtain mastery over the whole network and to aggravate various inside attacks against sensor networks. The message during communication from the one legitimate node to another legitimate node is also not secure thus altered by the attacker. Findings: In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm for securing message communication in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) from node clone attack. This algorithm makes use of the hybrid cryptography technique which consist of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) and lightweight hash function. In this algorithm, AES algorithm encrypts the message and digital signature whereas ECC algorithm encrypts the private key and generates digital signature. The lightweight hash function produces small and fixed size hash digest from the message. The analysis of the proposed algorithm is performed on the ground of parameters like computational overhead, communication overhead, storage overhead and high security level. Application/Improvements: The proposed algorithm authenticate message during communication with confidentiality. The analysis indicates that the suggested algorithm is suited for energy constrained sensor networks.