Security co-existence of wireless sensor networks and RFID for pervasive computing

Recent advances in wireless networks and embedded systems have created a new class of pervasive systems such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) systems. WSNs and RFID systems provide promising solutions for a wide variety of applications, particularly in pervasive computing. However, security and privacy concerns have raised serious challenges on these systems. These concerns have become more apparent when WSNs and RFID systems co-exist. In this article, we first briefly introduce WSNs and RFID systems. We then present their security concerns and related solutions. Finally, we propose a Linear Congruential Generator (LCG) based lightweight block cipher that can meet security co-existence requirements of WSNs and RFID systems for pervasive computing.