Study of Two Security Constructs on Throughput for Wireless Sensor Multi-Hop Networks

With the interconnection of devices becoming more widespread in society (e.g. internet of things), networked devices are used in a range of environments from smart grids to smart buildings. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have commonly been utilised as a method of monitoring a set processes. In control networks WSN have been deployed to perform a variety of tasks (i.e. collate and distribute data from an event to an end device). However, the nature of the wireless broadcast medium enables attackers to conduct active and passive attacks. Cryptography is selected as a countermeasure to overcome these security vulnerabilities; however, a drawback of using cryptography is reduced throughput. This paper investigates the impact of two software authenticated encryption with associated data (AEAD) security constructs on packet throughput of multiple hop WSN, being counter with cipher block chaining and message authentication code (CCM) and TinyAEAD. Experiments were conducted in a simulated environment. A case scenario is also presented in this paper to emphasise the impact in a real world context. Results observed indicate that the security constructs examined in this paper affect the average throughput measurements up to three hops.