Securing Communication in 6LoWPAN with Compressed IPsec

• Real-world deployments of wireless sensor networks(WSNs) require secure communication. It is important that areceiver is able to verify that sensor data was generated bytrusted nodes. It may also be necessary to encrypt sensor datain transit. Recently, WSNs and traditional IP networks are moretightly integrated using IPv6 and 6LoWPAN. Available IPv6protocol stacks can use IPsec to secure data exchange. Thus, itis desirable to extend 6LoWPAN such that IPsec communicationwith IPv6 nodes is possible. It is beneficial to use IPsec becausethe existing end-points on the Internet do not need to be modifiedto communicate securely with the WSN. Moreover, using IPsec,true end-to-end security is implemented and the need for atrustworthy gateway is removed.In this paper we provide End-to-End (E2E) secure communicationbetween IP enabled sensor networks and the traditionalInternet. This is the first compressed lightweight design, implementation,and evaluation of 6LoWPAN extension for IPsec.Our extension supports both IPsec’s Authentication Header (AH)and Encapsulation Security Payload (ESP). Thus, communicationendpoints are able to authenticate, encrypt and check theintegrity of messages using standardized and established IPv6mechanisms.

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