Entity authentication is a crucial security objective since it enables network nodes to verify the identity of each other. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are composed of a large number of possibly mobile nodes, which are limited in computational, storage and energy resources. These characteristics pose a challenge to entity authentication protocols and security in general.
We propose an authentication protocol whose execution is integrated within routing. This is in contrast to currently proposed protocols, in which a node tries to authenticate itself to other nodes without an explicit tie to the underlying routing protocol. In our protocol, nodes discover shared keys, authenticate themselves to each other and build routing paths all in a synergistic way.