Abstract
The data transmission in wireless sensor networks is liable to eavesdropping and tampering due to the open communication environments. Limited by the hardware of sensor nodes, it is difficult to use complicated encryption methods for designing defense mechanisms. Thus, the security issues in wireless sensor networks are mainly focused on symmetric key encryption (SKE) methods, which have lower computational complexity but limited connectivity and scalability. In this study, a defense mechanism based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is proposed to provide the authentication for identity and message transmission. The mechanism uses certificates to examine entity status for the defense against multiple attacks in clustered wireless sensor networks. The integrity and confidentiality is verified by a network security analysis.