Trust management in cloud-integrated Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The untethered nature of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) lets them sense information in previously unobtainable situations (e.g., undersea) as well as in various hostile environments (e.g., battlefield). With the proliferation of WSNs, a broad range of ubiquitous computing applications has been enabled in distributed sensing and control areas. Accordingly, the amount of data gathered by contemporary WSNs is becoming larger and larger, and creating unprecedented challenges in terms of computation and storage. Cloud computing, on the other hand, provides a data-intensive processing environment. Integrating cloud computing with WSNs is becoming one growing trend due to its great potential to enhance existing capabilities of WSNs. However, this integrated system brings more security issues, emanating from both WSNs and cloud computing. Ensuring data safety as well as system performance is an essential enabler and one of the major challenges to overcome. In this paper, we first study the architecture of cloud-integrated WSNs, identify security challenges in this architecture, and then discuss how trust management could be effectively used to enhance the security of such a system.