Why is IPSec a viable option for wireless sensor networks

Many issues still remain to be addressed in order to achieve acceptable security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This necessity, together with the adoption of IPv6 on WSNs being defined at the 6lowpan working group of the IETF, motivates our investigation on the feasibility of the application of IPSec on sensor nodes. IPSec is already part of IPv6, which makes it a natural candidate to be directly employed or adapted for WSNs. We discuss results obtained from practical experiments on the usage of cryptographic algorithms typically employed within IPSec in real sensor nodes. We analyze the security and performance tradeoffs involved when employing cryptography measures in WSNs, also in the context of their usage side-by-side with IPv6. The results obtained show that the adoption of a security architecture such as IPSec is viable, and also point towards the successful design and deployment of a security architecture for WSNs.