Editing Wireless sensor network (section)

===Secure data aggregation===
This is a form of in-network processing where [[sensor node]]s are assumed to be unsecured with limited available energy, while the base station is assumed to be secure with unlimited available energy. Aggregation complicates the already existing security challenges for wireless sensor networks<ref name="refSAWN">{{cite journal|last=Hu|first=Lingxuan|author2=David Evans |title=Secure aggregation for wireless networks|journal=Workshop on Security and Assurance in Ad Hoc Networks|date=January 2003}}</ref> and requires new security techniques tailored specifically for these scenarios. Providing security to aggregate data in wireless sensor networks is known as ''secure data aggregation in WSN''.<ref name="refESPDA" /><ref name="refSAWN" /><ref name="refSIA">{{cite book|last=Przydatek|first=Bartosz|author2=Dawn Song |author3=Adrian Perrig |title=Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Embedded networked sensor systems |chapter=SIA: Secure information aggregation in sensor networks|year=2003|pages=255–265|doi=10.1145/958491.958521|isbn=978-1-58113-707-1|s2cid=239370}}</ref> were the first few works discussing techniques for secure  data aggregation in wireless sensor networks.

Two main security challenges in secure data aggregation are confidentiality and integrity of data. While [[encryption]] is traditionally used to provide end to end confidentiality in wireless sensor network, the aggregators in a secure data aggregation scenario need to decrypt the encrypted data to perform aggregation. This exposes the plaintext at the aggregators, making the data vulnerable to attacks from an adversary. Similarly an aggregator can inject false data into the aggregate and make the base station accept false data. Thus, while data aggregation improves energy efficiency of a network, it complicates the existing security challenges.<ref name=refSDA>{{cite book|last=Kumar|first=Vimal|author2=Sanjay K. Madria |title=2012 IEEE 13th International Conference on Mobile Data Management|chapter=Secure Hierarchical Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks: Performance Evaluation and Analysis|date=August 2012 |pages=196–201|doi=10.1109/MDM.2012.49|isbn=978-1-4673-1796-2|s2cid=2990744}}</ref>