Secure Data Routing and Authentication Framework With Privacy Preservation for Multimedia Sensor Environments

ABSTRACT Multimedia Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs) form a crucial backbone of smart cities, enabling real‐time data collection and communication across diverse applications. However, ensuring secure routing, authentication, and efficient data transmission remains a major challenge due to limited resources and susceptibility to malicious attacks. This study proposes a trust‐based routing and authentication framework that integrates lightweight cryptographic mechanisms with a three‐phase certification process involving key generation, encryption, and decryption. A Trust Authority (TA) manages node registration, certificate issuance, and revocation, while cluster head (CH) selection is optimized using energy and distance‐based formulations to balance load and reduce energy consumption. The model employs both identification‐based and control‐packet authentication, ensuring confidentiality, non‐repudiation, and protection against internal attacks. Experimental evaluation on MATLAB with 100–500 sensor nodes and varying malicious ratios demonstrates that the proposed framework achieves higher detection accuracy, lower certification delay, reduced energy consumption, and improved throughput compared to existing approaches, making it suitable for secure smart city deployments.