Evaluating energy cost of route diversity for security in wireless sensor networks

•An LP framework that is capable of jointly modeling energy dissipation and route diversity in Wireless Sensor Networks is developed.•Through the developed framework, a comprehensive analysis by exploring the design space in a systematic fashion is conducted.•The energy overhead characteristics of route diversity countermeasures for resilience against node capture only (NCO), eavesdropping only (EAO), and node capture and eavesdropping (NCE) attacks are investigated.•LP problems are solvable in polynomial time. Hence, from computational point of view it is preferable to model a problem using LP rather than with a nonpolynomial time formulation which makes a comprehensive analysis infeasible. Thus, the novel LP framework presented in this paper can be used with minor modifications for future analysis on different aspects of route diversity.

Route diversity improves the security of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) against adversaries attempting to obtain sensitive sensor data. By limiting the fraction of data relayed over each link and/or routed through each relay node, route diversity can be achieved, thus, extracting useful information from the network is rendered more challenging for adversaries. Sensor nodes operate with limited energy resources, therefore, energy consumption of security mechanisms is a central concern for WSNs. In this paper we evaluate the energy cost of route diversity for security in WSNs through a novel Linear Programming framework. We characterize energy dissipation and data relaying behaviors of three route diversity techniques to mitigate node capture only, eavesdropping only, and node capture and eavesdropping attacks. Effects of node density, network area, level of resilience, and network topology on energy cost are investigated.