Resilient networking in wireless sensor networks

This report deals with security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), especially in network layer. Multiple secure routing protocols have been proposed in the literature. However, they often use the cryptography to secure routing functionalities. The cryptography alone is not enough to defend against multiple attacks due to the node compromise. Therefore, we need more algorithmic solutions. In this report, we focus on the behavior of routing protocols to determine which properties make them more resilient to attacks. Our aim is to find some answers to the following questions. Are there any existing protocols, not designed initially for security, but which already contain some inherently resilient properties against attacks under which some portion of the network nodes is compromised? If yes, which specific behaviors are making these protocols more resilient? We propose in this report an overview of security strategies for WSNs in general, including existing attacks and defensive measures. In this report we focus at the network layer in particular, and an analysis of the behavior of four particular routing protocols is provided to determine their inherent resiliency to insider attacks. The protocols considered are: Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Gradient-Based Routing (GBR), Greedy Forwarding (GF) and Random Walk Routing (RWR)

A Survey on Wireless Sensor Network Security

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in the research community due their wide range of applications. Due to distributed nature of these networks and their deployment in remote areas, these networks are vulnerable to numerous security threats that can adversely affect their proper functioning. This problem is more critical if the network is deployed for some mission-critical applications such as in a tactical battlefield. Random failure of nodes is also very likely in real-life deployment scenarios. Due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes, traditional security mechanisms with large overhead of computation and communication are infeasible in WSNs. Security in sensor networks is, therefore, a particularly challenging task. This paper discusses the current state of the art in security mechanisms for WSNs. Various types of attacks are discussed and their countermeasures presented. A brief discussion on the future direction of research in WSN security is also included.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Clone Node Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are often deployed in unfavourable situations where an assailant can physically capture some of the nodes, first can reprogram, and then, can replicate them in a large number of clones, easily taking control over the network. This replication node is also called as Clone node. The clone node or replicated node behave as a genuine node. It can damage the network. In node replication attack detecting the clone node important issue in Wireless Sensor Networks. A few distributed solutions have been recently proposed, but they are not satisfactory. First, they are intensity and memory demanding: A serious drawback for any protocol to be used in the WSN- resource constrained environment. In this project first investigate the selection criteria of clone detection schemes with regard to device types, detection methodologies, deployment strategies, and detection ranges. Further, they are vulnerable to the specific assailant models introduced in this paper. In this scenario, a particularly dangerous attack is the replica attack, in which the assailant takes the secret keying materials from a compromised node, generates a large number of assailant-controlled replicas that share the node’s keying materials and ID, and then spreads these replicas throughout the network. With a single captured node, the assailant can create as many replica nodes as he has the hardware to generate.. The replica nodes are controlled by the assailant, but have keying materials that allow them to seem like authorized participants in the network. Our implementation specifies, user will specify its ID, which means client id, secret key will be create, and then include the port number. The witness node will verify the internally bounded user Id and secret key. The witness node means original node. If the verification is success, the information collecting to the packets that packets are send to the destination

Replication Attack Mitigations for Static and Mobile WSN

Security is important for many sensor network applications. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are often deployed in hostile environments as static or mobile, where an adversary can physically capture some of the nodes. once a node is captured, adversary collects all the credentials like keys and identity etc. the attacker can re-program it and replicate the node in order to eavesdrop the transmitted messages or compromise the functionality of the network. Identity theft leads to two types attack: clone and sybil. In particularly a harmful attack against sensor networks where one or more node(s) illegitimately claims an identity as replicas is known as the node replication attack. The replication attack can be exceedingly injurious to many important functions of the sensor network such as routing, resource allocation, misbehavior detection, etc. This paper analyzes the threat posed by the replication attack and several novel techniques to detect and defend against the replication attack, and analyzes their effectiveness in both static and mobile WSN.Comment: 12 page

An Authentication Protocol for Future Sensor Networks

Authentication is one of the essential security services in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for ensuring secure data sessions. Sensor node authentication ensures the confidentiality and validity of data collected by the sensor node, whereas user authentication guarantees that only legitimate users can access the sensor data. In a mobile WSN, sensor and user nodes move across the network and exchange data with multiple nodes, thus experiencing the authentication process multiple times. The integration of WSNs with Internet of Things (IoT) brings forth a new kind of WSN architecture along with stricter security requirements; for instance, a sensor node or a user node may need to establish multiple concurrent secure data sessions. With concurrent data sessions, the frequency of the re-authentication process increases in proportion to the number of concurrent connections, which makes the security issue even more challenging. The currently available authentication protocols were designed for the autonomous WSN and do not account for the above requirements. In this paper, we present a novel, lightweight and efficient key exchange and authentication protocol suite called the Secure Mobile Sensor Network (SMSN) Authentication Protocol. In the SMSN a mobile node goes through an initial authentication procedure and receives a re-authentication ticket from the base station. Later a mobile node can use this re-authentication ticket when establishing multiple data exchange sessions and/or when moving across the network. This scheme reduces the communication and computational complexity of the authentication process. We proved the strength of our protocol with rigorous security analysis and simulated the SMSN and previously proposed schemes in an automated protocol verifier tool. Finally, we compared the computational complexity and communication cost against well-known authentication protocols.Comment: This article is accepted for the publication in "Sensors" journal. 29 pages, 15 figure

Distribuirani obrambeni mehanizmi za clone napade temeljeni na algoritmu za istraživanje gravitacije (GSA) u WSN

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are often deployed in hostile environment and are vulnerable to attacks because of the resource constrained nature of the sensors. Clone attack in WSN is one of the major issues where the messages are eavesdropped, the captured node is cloned, and multiple nodes with same identity are produced by attacker. In order to overcome these issues, in this paper, a Distributed Defense Mechanism for Clone Attacks based on Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) in WSN is proposed. For efficiently detecting the suspect nodes, the nodes in the channel can be divided into witness node and the claimer node. The witness nodes are responsible for the suspect nodes detection, whereas the claimer nodes should provide their identities for the detection process. For the witness nodes selection, we utilize the GSA to pick out the best witness nodes set. After selecting the witness nodes, clone attack detection is performed by observing the behavior of the neighbor nodes. On detecting the clone attack, revocation procedure is triggered to revoke the clone attack in the witness nodes. By simulation results, it can be concluded that the proposed algorithm provides better protection to clone attacks by reducing the packet drop and increasing the packet delivery ratio.Bežične senzorske mreže (WSN) često su raspoređene u neprijateljskom okruženju i ranjive su na napade zbog prirode senzora koji su tehnološki ograničeni. Clone napad u WSN jedan je od glavnih problema gdje se poruke prisluškuju, zarobljeni čvor se klonira te napadač proizvede višestruke čvorove istog identiteta. Kako bi nadvladali te probleme, ovaj rad predlaže distribuirani obrambeni mehanizam za clone napade temeljen na algoritmu za istraživanje gravitacije (GSA) u WSN. Kako bi se sumnjivi čvorovi efikasno detektirali, čvorovi u kanalu mogu se podijeliti u čvorove svjedoke i tražene čvorove. Čvorovi svjedoci odgovorni su za otkrivanje sumnjivih čvorova, dok traženi čvorovi trebaju za potrebe procesa detekcije navesti svoj identitet. Za izbor čvorova svjedoka, koristi se GSA kako bi se izabrala grupa čvorova koji su najprikladniji. Nakon izbora čvorova svjedoka, otkivanje clone napada vrši se promatranjem ponašanja susjednih čvorova. Otkrivanjem clone napada aktivira se proces opoziva kako bi se opozvao clone napad u čvorovima svjedocima. Prema rezultatima dobivenim iz simulacije može se zaključiti kako predloženi algoritam pruža bolju zaštitu od clone napada smanjivanjem odbacivanja paketa i povećavanjem omjera isporuke paketa