ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the security properties required by communication networks focusing on the specific capabilities of sensor networks. Wireless sensor networks have become a major research domain in the communications community. Wireless sensor networks and corresponding applications greatly benefit from the proliferation of energy-aware embedded systems. Proactive key distribution stands for key exchange after the deployment of the sensor network, but before any data communication occurs. If two sensor nodes are closely located to each other, they have very low probability to be in active-state at the same time. A common characteristic of sensor networks is their severely limited energy supply. Cryptographic primitives are the fundamental building blocks of every secure protocol and the knowledge of algorithm usability is crucial for the design of new protocols for sensor networks. A common characteristic of sensor networks is their severely limited energy supply.
