Analysis of Key Management and Quantum Cryptography in Wireless Sensors Networks
Vijey Thayananthan
Key management and quantum cryptography (QC) are very interesting and challenging areas in wireless sensor networks (WSN). In order to make secure communications around WSN, communication between sensor nodes and base station to sensor node communication should be handled carefully. Today’s security around WSN needs efficient key management protocol and QC involved with quantum mathematical procedures and quantum physics [1]. According to the key management analysis, computational complexities of conventional and potential cryptography are very high. In order to avoid high complexity in key management, QC can be used because it is involved with quantum computation [4][5]. Quantum key distribution (QKD) is already established with laws of quantum mechanics influenced to quantum computations for some networks such as fiber optic, satellite based communication etc. Therefore, efficient approach of QC will be analyzed to manage the keys with maximum security and less complexity. Key management protocol [2][3] in wireless networks is influenced with authentication which uses symmetric or asymmetric cryptography. Authentication and entities in upper layers use public key cryptography [6]. In this paper, we propose an enhanced version of key management and QC for WSN. Thus, we modify authentication protocol between the access points and wireless sensor network with symmetric polynomial based on QC approach. In modern QC, there are possibilities for which quantum computation techniques allow to expand the bandwidth. It is another interesting area in QC because bandwidth expansion will increase the level of security in WSN
International Journal of Computer Applications•Jan 1, 2011•4 citations