Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2009/289

Analysis of the End-by-Hop Protocol for Secure Aggregation in Sensor Networks

Erik Zenner

Abstract: In order to save bandwidth and thus battery power, sensor network measurements are sometimes aggregated en-route while being reported back to the querying server. Authentication of the measurements then becomes a challenge if message integrity is important for the application.

At ESAS 2007, the End-by-Hop protocol for securing in-network aggregation for sensor nodes was presented. The solution was claimed to be secure and efficient and to provide the possibility of trading off bandwidth against computation time on the server.

In this paper, we disprove these claims. We describe several attacks against the proposed solution and point out shortcomings in the original complexity analysis. In particular, we show that the proposed solution is inferior to a naive solution without in-network aggregation both in security and in efficiency.

Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols / cryptanalysis, sensor networks, protocols

Publication Info: DTU MAT report no. 2009-01

Date: received 11 Jun 2009, last revised 17 Jun 2009

Contact author: e zenner at mat dtu dk

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20090617:151029 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2009/289

Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion