Group rekeying mechanisms are crucial when a compromised sensor is detected by a network monitor. During the eviction of the compromised node, the security of legitimate sensors must be guaranteed against potential attacks. Furthermore, hierarchical Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) generally outperform flat WSNs in efficiency, as they are better suited for data fusion. However, the vast majority of existing schemes are impractical for WSNs due to excessive energy consumption. To address this challenge, we propose a group polynomial refresh mechanism executed directly by the Cluster Head (CH) without requiring additional processes. This allows non-compromised sensors within the CH’s transmission range to seamlessly update their group keys. By leveraging a shorter transmission range, energy consumption is kept well within an acceptable threshold. Our evaluation demonstrates that the subgroup concept significantly reduces energy overhead, and our proposed scheme outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in overall performance.
Wu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.