Problem Area Identification with Secure Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The primary use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to collect and process data. Most of the energy consumption is due to data transmission. Because of the unique properties of WSNs all raw data samples are not directly sent to the sink node instead data aggregation is preferred. Since sensor nodes are deployed in an open environment such as a battlefield or similar applications, data confidentiality and integrity are vital issues in such conditions, hence secure aggregation is required. End to end secure aggregation is less demanding compared to hop by hop secure aggregation so former is superior. When aggregation is performed on data, crucial information is lost which may be indicating alarming situation. This paper presents an idea to reduce the amount of information transmitted with retention of critical data so that the problem area could be identified. Privacy Homomorphism(PH) preserves the data characteristics even in the encrypted form. This paper is based on the PH technique which provides secure data aggregation without significant loss of individuality of data.