Multilevel μTESLA

Abstract

Broadcast authentication is a fundamental security service in distributed sensor networks. This paper presents the development of a scalable broadcast authentication scheme named <i>multilevel μTESLA</i> based on μTESLA, a broadcast authentication protocol whose scalability is limited by its unicast-based initial parameter distribution. Multilevel μTESLA satisfies several nice properties, including low overhead, tolerance of message loss, scalability to large networks, and resistance to replay attacks as well as denial-of-service attacks. This paper also presents the experimental results obtained through simulation, which demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme under severe denial-of-service attacks and poor channel quality.