Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are critical in modern applications—from environmental monitoring and innovative healthcare to industrial automation. However, their decentralized and resource-constrained nature makes them inherently vulnerable to sophisticated security threats. Traditional perimeter-based security frameworks, which assume internal nodes are trustworthy, have proven insufficient against insider attacks, and advanced persistent threats. Zero Trust (ZT), with its “never trust, always verify” philosophy, offers a paradigm shift by distrusting every entity by default and enforcing continuous verification. In this paper, a comprehensive Zero Trust framework tailored for WSNs is proposed, addressing key challenges such as dynamic trust establishment, constant authentication of sensor nodes, and energy-efficient security mechanisms suitable for constrained devices. Simulation results demonstrate improved resilience against various attack types (e.g., Sybil, blackhole, wormhole, denial of service), reduced false positives in anomaly detection via machine learning, and optimized energy consumption through trust-based clustering. Further discuss challenges in scaling Zero Trust in heterogeneous WSN environments and outline future directions, including integration with emerging security paradigms, machine learning-driven adaptive security, blockchain-based trust management, and energy-aware trust models. This work contributes to advancing secure communication in WSNs using a Zero Trust approach, highlighting its advantages and remaining challenges in real-world deployments.

Key words: zero trust (ZT), wireless sensor network (WSN), industrial IoT (IIoT), intrusion detection system (IDS)