sensors Article A Polynomial Subset-Based Efficient Multi-Party Key Management System for Lightweight Device Networks Zahid Mahmood 1, Huansheng Ning 1,* and AtaUllah Ghafoor 2 1 School of Computer and Communication Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China; [email protected] 2 Department of Computer Science, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected], Tel.: +86-136-0131-7155 Academic Editors: Yunchuan Sun, Zhipeng Cai and Antonio Jara Received: 3 February 2017; Accepted: 18 March 2017; Published: 24 March 2017 Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of lightweight devices to measure sensitive data that are highly vulnerable to security attacks due to their constrained resources. In a similar manner, the internet-based lightweight devices used in the Internet of Things (IoT) are facing severe security and privacy issues because of the direct accessibility of devices due to their connection to the internet. Complex and resource-intensive security schemes are infeasible and reduce the network lifetime. In this regard, we have explored the polynomial distribution-based key establishment schemes and identified an issue that the resultant polynomial value is either storage intensive or infeasible when large values are multiplied. It becomes more costly when these polynomials are regenerated dynamically after each node join or leave operation and whenever key is refreshed. To reduce the computation, we have proposed an Efficient Key Management (EKM) scheme for multiparty communication-based scenarios. The proposed session key management protocol is established by applying a symmetric polynomial for group members, and the group head acts as a responsible node. The polynomial generation method uses security credentials and secure hash function. Symmetric cryptographic parameters are efficient in computation, communication, and the storage required. The security justification of the proposed scheme has been completed by using Rubin logic, which guarantees that the protocol attains mutual validation and session key agreement property strongly among the participating entities. Simulation scenarios are performed using NS 2.35 to validate the results for storage, communication, latency, energy, and polynomial calculation costs during authentication, session key generation, node migration, secure joining, and leaving phases. EKM is efficient regarding storage, computation, and communication overhead and can protect WSN-based IoT infrastructure. Keywords: path key; symmetric; polynomial; hashing; proxy node; node storage 1. Introduction A recent advancement in communication technology, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are widely used in several applications [1]. The science community has focused on the security of WSNs. Because of the resource-constrained environment of the WSNs, classic security mechanisms are not practical since they consume too much energy; hence researchers are proposing new lightweight security mechanisms for every possible security aspect of WSNs. WSNs consist of many small, low-cost, self-governing ends called sensor nodes with little ability to manipulate data [2] and with constrained computing, energy, and memory. MICA2 Motes use 8 bit, 16 MHz processors with 4 K bytes of Sensors 2017, 17, 670; doi:10.3390/s17040670 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors Sensors 2017, 17, 670 2 of 20 Sensors 2017, 17, 670 2 of 20 4 K bytes of electronically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM) and 128 K bytes of electronicallyprogrammable erasable memory programmable [3]. 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