Securing Communication in IP-Connected Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: With the advent of wireless sensor networks (WSN) and success of wirelesscommunication in the local and personal area networks such asWi-Fi and Bluetoothmore serious efforts to apply standard wireless communication in sensitiveindustrial networks were initiated. This effort resulted in the standardizationof WirelessHART. Other standardization efforts include ISA 100.11a andZigBee. Keeping in mind the nature of wireless communication and sensitivityof industrial environments security of these network gets greater importance.In this thesis we work on security issues in industrial WSN in general andIP-connected WSN in particular. Currently WirelessHART is the only approvedstandard for secure wireless communication in industrial WSNs. Westart our work with the analysis of security mechanisms in WirelessHART.We propose solutions for the security shortcomings in WirelessHART, and designand implement the missing security components. Particularly, we specify,design, implement, and evaluate the first open security manager for WirelessHARTnetworks.With the standardization of IP in WSNs (6LoWPAN) and birth of Internetof Things the need for IP communication in industrial WSN is getting importance.The recently proposed ISA 100.11a standard is IP-based since its inception.Also standardization efforts are in progress to apply IP in WirelessHARTand Zigbee. Recently, WSNs and traditional IP networks are more tightly integratedusing IPv6 and 6LoWPAN. We realize the importance of having aninteroperable standardized secure IP communication in industrial WSNs. IPSecurity (IPsec) is a mandatory security solution in IPv6. We propose to useIPsec for 6LoWPAN enabled industrial WSNs. However, it is not meaningfulto use IPsec in its current form in resource constrained WSNs. In additionto providing security solutions for WirelessHART, in this thesis we also specify,design, implement, and extensively evaluate lightweight IPsec that enablesend-to-end secure communication between a node in a 6LoWPAN and a device in the traditional Internet. Our results show that lightweight IPsec is a sensibleand practical solution for securing WSN.