Development of an Energy-Efficient, Secure and Reliable Wireless Sensor Networks Routing Protocol Based on Data Aggregation and User Authentication

Data aggregation protocols are required in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) to improve the data accuracy and extend the network lifetime by reducing the energy consumption. The existing Data Aggregation-Optimal LEACH (DAO-LEACH) protocol for WSN is enhanced in terms of security and fault-tolerance based on Gracefully Degraded Data Aggregation (GDDA) to ensure the integrity of the aggregated data and Hybrid Layer User Authentication (HLUA) to ensure the confidentiality of the aggregated data. This data aggregation scheme rejects the false data from compromised and malfunctioning Sensor Nodes (SNs). HLUA consists of a combination of Secret Key Cryptography (SKC) method such as Message Authentication Code (MAC) algorithm and Public Key Cryptography (PKC) method such as Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). MAC algorithm is used between the Cluster Heads (CHs) and SNs to fulfill lower power demand, while ECC is applied for User Authentication (UA) between CHs and users. The enhanced DAO-LEACH protocol is resistant to security attacks such as, replay attacks, node compromising attacks and impersonation attacks. It performs better in terms of energy consumption, number of nodes alive, End-to-End Delay (EED), false data detection and aggregation accuracy.