Abstract
Security is considered a challenge for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) due to the critical information transferred through the collection of smart sensor nodes forming the network. However, due to the energy limitation of these nodes, clustering these nodes can prolong the lifetime of the network. One of the famous clustering algorithms is Hybrid Energy Efficient Distributed Clustering protocol (HEED). At the same time, most of the current clustering protocols are inefficient in terms of cluster head (CH) selection and area coverage. In this paper, we propose a security framework called Virtual ECC Group Key (VEGK) merging Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) with symmetric pairwise keys along with virtual ECC group keys to be used for WSN. In addition, the paper proposes a new fuzzy clustering module as an enhancement to the HEED clustering algorithm for efficient area coverage and network's energy saving. Moreover, we believe that merging the security with clustering will be beneficial to the energy saving in WSN as well. Therefore, another contribution of this paper is to apply the proposed security algorithm during the clustering. Based on different scenarios, our proposed clustering and security frameworks are proved to protect the network from many of the current attacks as well as saving the network energy and enhancing the network coverage.