Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

Simple Cryptographic Data Securityalgorighm for

Wireless Sensor Network
1
Onyeyili T.I, 2Azubogu A.C.O, 3Okafor C.S, 4Oranugo C.O.
1, 2, 3, 4
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka

Abstract:- Wireless sensor network (WSN) popularity is WSNs are known to be susceptible to a variety of
increasing for a wide variety of applications, yet the attacks; it can be attacks on nodes or attacks on information
integrity and confidentiality of transmitted data remains such as node capture, physical tampering, and denial of
one of the major barriers to its full exploitation. In this service, prompting a range of fundamental research
paper, an outdoor experimental testbed of multi-hop challenges [13]. An attacker can also eavesdrop on, inject or
WSN with dimension 21 m x 18 m for pipeline alter the data transmitted between sensor nodes, thereby
monitoring was developed. A light-weight symmetric compromising the confidentiality, authenticity, reliability,
cryptographic algorithm was developed to encrypt and availability, and the integrity of the data being transferred.
decrypt transmitted data. A simulator running on a VB These make data security in wireless sensor network an area
interface was also developed to test the efficiency and of great concern. Effective security technique is therefore
functionality of the developed algorithm, to monitor required to ensure that data provided by the WSN meets its
leakage detection in pipeline and evaluate the need without compromise while ensuring also that this
effectiveness of the simple cryptographic security technique takes into consideration the sensor node
algorithm rupture in the water pipeline testbed was constraints of low memory, flexibility, low cost of
simulated by opening and closing valves installed at implementation and low energy consumption. Cryptography
various points of the water pipeline testbed. The effect of is one way to provide security. It can be by symmetric key
simulated rupture in terms of amplitude of acceleration techniques, asymmetric key techniques or by hybrid
(vibration change) was found to be proportional to the technique.
rupture location and sensor nodes location. The results
generated from these simulations where implemented Considering these constraints, this paper describes the
with the developed WSN simulator, to show how development of acceleration-based sensor nodes for pipeline
encryption and decryption of data at the different nodes monitoring and the implementation of a light weight
are achieved. symmetric cryptographic algorithm to ensure that the
integrity and confidentially of transmitted data are not
Keywords:- WSN, Cryptographic Algorithm, compromised.
Accelerometers, Testbed.
II. REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS
I. INTRODUCTION
Security management is the process of protecting and
A wireless sensor network consists of multiple securing information transferred within a WSN. Wireless
detection stations called sensor nodes deployed over a sensor networks make use of a number of sensor nodes
geographical sensing area to monitor [2] and detect specific within or close to the area of event to not only collect and
target parameters and collect data, and then send the data to integrate but also process and relay the information [1].
sink or base station (BS) wirelessly [3]. Every sensor node is Depending on the area of deployment, the data gotten from
equipped with a transducer (sensing unit), microcontroller these sensors can be very sensitive, hence security of these
(processing unit), transceiver (communication unit) and information are of paramount importance. So research in an
power source [4]. A lightweight operating system enables a efficient security management in WSN is an on-going issue
node to function and provide features such as sensor polling, and a challenge especially as these networks have limited
data aggregation and manipulation, wireless communication, capabilities with respect to power and memory size.
and remote access [5].Due to the recent technology
advances, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Sensors (MEMS) According to [14], DES presented a model that uses 16
technologies have made node miniaturization, round feistel structure, with a block size of 64bits, uses 8
manufacturing of small and low-cost sensors to become bits for parity check and has the effective key length of 56
technically and economically feasible [6].WSN are used in bits. DES is weak to linear cryptanalysis and has short key
several real life applications such as environmental length, its improvement Triple DES is slower and
monitoring [7], agriculture [8], production and delivery [9], computational intensive in terms of memory and time.
military [10], structural monitoring [11] and medical Blowfish is a keyed, symmetric cryptographic block cipher.
applications [12].Depending on the area of deployment, the It has a 64-bit block size and a key length of anywhere from
data gotten from these sensors can be sensitive and highly 32 bits to 448 bits. It is a 16-round Feistel cipher and uses
classified hence are prone to attacks. large key-dependent S-boxes. Blowfish has long processing

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Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
time hence is slow and are susceptible to plain text attack that convert the input, called the plaintext, into the final
[15]. Two fish is a symmetric key block cipher with a block output, called the cipher text. AES is easy to implement, it is
size of 128 bits and key sizes up to 256 bits. . It is said to be fast, has low energy requirement and its code size, data size,
efficient both for software that runs in smaller processors processing time, and power consumption make it desirable.
but has very large file size. RC6 proper has a block size of
128 bits and supports key sizes of 128, 192, and 256 bits; it III. METHODOLOGY AND SYSTEM DESIGN
is very similar to RC5 in structure. It is very compact, and
can be coded efficiently in assembly language on most An experimental testbed was setup behind the block 𝐴
processors but the lack of an on-the-fly round key wing of Prof. Gordian Ezekwe Faculty of Engineering
computation capability causes decryption to require a large building, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. The
amount of RAM and reduces the key agility [16]. The asymmetrical testbed has the dimension of 21 m x 18 m with
authors [17] described Advanced Encryption Standard 15 pressure (PVC) pipes of 2-inches in diameter and valves
(AES) as an iterative rather than Feistel cipher. Its principle labeled V1 to V6. Figure 1 shows the layout of the testbed
was based on a design principle known as a substitution- drawn to scale.
permutation network. The key size used for an AES cipher
specifies the number of repetitions of transformation rounds

Figure 1: Experimental Prototype testbed

Acceleration-based sensor nodes were attached on  The base station queries the sink node for information.
each wing of the network close to the valves and the valves  The sink node broadcasts this information to the source
were used to simulate ruptures through opening and closing. nodes every 8seconds.
A 1.5hp pumping machine was used to ensure water  Each microcontroller on each node receives the
circulation around the pipeline during the experiment. The broadcast and signals the sensors to sense.
Source nodes were placed on the surface of the pipeline  The sensor nodes are turned ON and senses.
while the sink node also placed on the pipeline gathered and  The microcontroller receives the sensed data and
aggregate the data from the source nodes to be transported encrypts it.
to the base station located few meters away from the sensing  The radio device transfers the encrypted data from the
field to a PC as user interface. front-end node to the sink node.
 The sink node decrypts the data, scrutinizes the data for
Security Management algorithm was incorporated to viability, relevance and aggregation. Then it encrypts the
enhance the data security and integrity and the relevant data and sends to the base station.
cryptographic algorithm was employed on all
 The base station decrypts the information, which can
microcontrollers to encrypt data before transmission from
therefore be used for further decision making depending
any of the terminal nodes to the base station, as well as the
on the nature of response.
ability to decrypt on the base station.

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Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

START

Initialize

Base station queries the sink

Sink node send unique ID to Source nodes

Is ID Is ID Is ID Is ID Is ID
NO NO NO NO NO
meant meant meant meant meant
for N1? for N2? for N3? for N4? for N5?

YES YES YES YES YES

Acquire vibration data

Convert, Process and encrypt data

Transmit Encrypted Data to sink node

Decrypt data for validation and aggregation

YES
Error Move to BIN (Discard)

NO

Append Normalization factor

Encrypt Data

Forward data to base station

End of NO
Frame- count + 1
frame?

YES
Clear frame-count

Figure 2: Data Flow chart

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Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
Cryptographic Model: 3. Data size: The encryption of the data increases the data
The cryptographic model was developed by size by 2KB and utilizes the memory size available in the
considering the following parameters: microcontroller (65KB).
1. Code size: This size of the code was determined by the
memory size of the microcontroller on which it will be  The Encryption Algorithm:
implemented. Hence the code size is made to be 5KB. The following are the steps involved in the encryption
2. Secured protocol vulnerability: The implemented code process:
was done using randomly selected encryption key and 1. Byte Multiplication step:
randomly selected decryption key developed with AES If data = M,
algorithm. This makes the code uniquely secured as it [Output from this stage = M*x (Where x is a randomly
encrypts the data almost at the point of generation. It also selected variable)]
combines this with a camouflage login method created 2. The ShiftByte step:
for access control. In this step, the bytes in each row of the state are shifted
cyclically to the left. The number of places each byte is
shifted differs for each row; [Mx – 1].

Figure3: ShiftByte step.

3. The AddRandomKey step:

In the AddRandomKey step, each byte of the state is combined with a byte using the XOR operation (⊕); [(Mx – 1) ⊕ c], where
c is a random byte.

4. Byte Addition:
The output from step 3 is then added to a fixed variable;
[((Mx – 1) ⊕ c) + y], where y is the fixed variable.

Figure4: Developed algorithm structure.

 Decryption Algorithm: IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In order for decryption to work, all parameters of this
function except cipherText value - must match the The recorded data were processed in the form of
corresponding parameters of the Encrypt function which distribution tables. The Cryptographic WSN security
was called to generate the cipher text. The decryption is simulator was developed using Microsoft Visual studio
simply a reverse of the encryption process. 2015, with VB programming language to simulate the
security system implementation of the cryptographic
algorithm on the generated data recorded at the BS during
the experiment. Fig. 2 shows the simulator interfaces for the
WSN data security with sample encrypted and decrypted
outputs gotten at the base station during the experiment.

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Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Fig 5: Cryptographic WSN Security Implementation Camouflage login interface.

Fig 6: WSN Node Security Implementation Interface.

Fig 7: Encryption Simulation.

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Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Fig 8: Decryption Simulation

Fig 9: Database Containing Encrypted and Decrypted values.

To justify the performance of the developed algorithm, values gotten from the non-fluid flow condition experiment is
simulated using the developed WSN security simulator, to show how the security is implemented in the source nodes, sink node,
the base station and on the database.

Fig 10: Database view showing the encrypted and decrypted values from table 1.

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Volume 6, Issue 5, May – 2021 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
 Additional security features of the software: [8]. Baggio, A., “ Wireless sensor network in precision
1. Camouflage password access control to the base system. agriculture”, in Proc. ACM Workshop on Real-world
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