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

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)

Node-Replication Attack Detection in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks based on Automatic Approach

Recent advances in smart cities applications enforce security threads such as node replication attacks. Such attack is take place when the attacker plants a replicated network node within the network. Vehicular Ad hoc networks are connecting sensors that have limited resources and required the response time to be as low as possible. In this type networks, traditional detection algorithms of node replication attacks are not efficient. In this paper, we propose an initial idea to apply a newly adapted statistical methodology that can detect node replication attacks with high performance as compared to state-of-the-art techniques. We provide a sufficient description of this methodology and a road-map for testing and experiment its performance

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

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

Implementation of Fuzzy Based Simulation for Clone Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are usually left unattended and serve hostile environment, therefore can easily be compromised. With compromised nodes an attacker can conduct several inside and outside attacks. Node replication attack is one of them which can cause severe damage to wireless sensor network if left undetected. This paper presents fuzzy based simulation framework for detection and revocation of compromised nodes in wireless sensor network. Our proposed scheme uses PDR statistics and neighbor reports to determine the probability of a cluster being compromised. Nodes in compromised cluster are then revoked and software attestation is performed.Simulation is carried out on MATLAB 2010a and performance of proposed scheme is compared with conventional algorithms on the basis of communication and storage overhead. Simulation results show that proposed scheme require less communication and storage overhead than conventional algorithms

Node clone detection using a stable overlay network

Wireless sensor networks consist of number of sensor nodes widely distributed in particular region to communicate and sharing the environmental information and also these data’s are stored in central location for further data prediction. Such nodes are susceptible to cloning attack where the adversary captures a node, replicates with the same identity as that of the captured node and deploys the clone back into the network, causing severe harm to the network. Hence to thwart such attacks, a distributed detection protocol is used with initiator-observer-inspector roles assigned randomly for the nodes to witness the clone and thereby broadcast the evidence through a balanced overlay network. Use of such balanced network provides high security level and reduces the communication cost when compared to other overlay networks with a reasonably less storage consumption