Citation: Awan, S.; Javaid, N.; Ullah,
S.; Khan, A.U.; Qamar, A.M.; Choi,
J.-G. Blockchain Based Secure
Routing and Trust Management in
Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensors
2022, 22, 411. https://doi.org/
10.3390/s22020411
Academic Editors: Matteo Anedda
and Daniele Giusto
Received: 25 November 2021
Accepted: 30 December 2021
Published: 6 January 2022
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Article
Blockchain Based Secure Routing and Trust Management in
Wireless Sensor Networks
†
Saba Awan
1
, Nadeem Javaid
1,2,
* , Sameeh Ullah
3,
, Asad Ullah Khan
1
, Ali Mustafa Qamar
4
and Jin-Ghoo Choi
5,
*
1
Department of Computer Science, COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;
fa19-rse-041@student.comsats.edu.pk (S.A.); sp19-rcs-012@student.comsats.edu.com or
asadullahkhan2307@gmail.com (A.U.K.)
2
School of Computer Science, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
3
School of Information Technology, Illinois State University USA, Normal, IL 61761, USA; sullah@ilstu.edu
4
Department of Computer Science, College of Computer, Qassim University, Buraydah 52571, Saudi Arabia;
al.khan@qu.edu.sa
5
Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan 38541, Korea
* Correspondence: nadeemjavaidqau@gmail.com or nadeemjavaid@comsats.edu.pk (N.J.);
jchoi@yu.ac.kr (J.-G.C.)
† This paper is an extension version of the conference paper: Awan, S.; Sajid, M.B.E.; Amjad, S.; Aziz, U.;
Gurmani, U.; Javaid, N. Blockchain based Authentication and Trust Evaluation Mechanism for Secure
Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Innovative
Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS), Sydney, Australia, 3–5 July 2019.
Abstract:
In this paper, an encryption and trust evaluation model is proposed on the basis of a
blockchain in which the identities of the Aggregator Nodes (ANs) and Sensor Nodes (SNs) are
stored. The authentication of ANs and SNs is performed in public and private blockchains, respec-
tively. However, inauthentic nodes utilize the network’s resources and perform malicious activities.
Moreover, the SNs have limited energy, transmission range and computational capabilities, and are
attacked by malicious nodes. Afterwards, the malicious nodes transmit wrong information of the
route and increase the number of retransmissions due to which the SNs’ energy is rapidly consumed.
The lifespan of the wireless sensor network is reduced due to the rapid energy dissipation of the SNs.
Furthermore, the throughput increases and packet loss increase with the presence of malicious nodes
in the network. The trust values of SNs are computed to eradicate the malicious nodes from the
network. Secure routing in the network is performed considering residual energy and trust values of
the SNs. Moreover, the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), a cryptosystem that provides asymmetric
keys, is used for securing data transmission. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the
proposed model in terms of high packet delivery ratio.
Keywords:
authentication; blockchain; Rivest–Shamir–Adleman; secure routing; smart contract; trust
evaluation; wireless sensor network
1. Introduction
A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) plays an important part in the growth of various
applications such as healthcare, the military, industrial surveillance, etc., [
1
–
3
]. In this self-
organized network, Sensor Nodes (SNs) with limited energy, storage and computational
capabilities are randomly distributed [
4
–
6
]. The SNs monitor different factors, which are
wind, humidity, temperature, etc., and then forward the data to the Base Stations (BSs) [
7
].
One of the major issue in WSNs is security threats. The reason is that SNs are resource
constrained and can be easily compromised [
8
,
9
]. Generally, there are two types of attacks
that are performed in the WSNs. In external attacks, the attackers take control over the
SNs to perform malicious activities, whereas, in internal attacks, SNs behave selfishly to
preserve their energy and storage. Consequently, identifying and removing the malicious
nodes from the network are crucial aspects [10].
Sensors 2022, 22, 411. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22020411 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
