Configurable Secured Adaptive Routing Protocol for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper aims at designing, building, and simulating a secured routing protocol to defend against packet dropping attacks in mobile WSNs (MWSNs). This research addresses the gap in the literature by proposing Configurable Secured Adaptive Routing Protocol (CSARP). CSARP has four levels of protection to allow suitability for different types of network applications. The protocol allows the network admin to configure the required protection level and the ratio of cluster heads to all nodes. The protocol has an adaptive feature, which allows for better protection and preventing the spread of the threats in the network. The conducted CSARP simulations with different conditions showed the ability of CSARP to identify all malicious nodes and remove them from the network. CSARP provided more than 99.97% packets delivery rate with 0% data packet loss in the existence of 3 malicious nodes in comparison with 3.17% data packet loss without using CSARP. When compared with LEACH, CSARP showed an improvement in extending the lifetime of the network by up to 39.5%. The proposed protocol has proven to be better than the available security solutions in terms of configurability, adaptability, optimization for MWSNs, energy consumption optimization, and the suitability for different MWSNs applications and conditions

Optimising routing and trustworthiness of ad hoc networks using swarm intelligence

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philsophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThis thesis proposes different approaches to address routing and security of MANETs using swarm technology. The mobility and infrastructure-less of MANET as well as nodes misbehavior compose great challenges to routing and security protocols of such a network. The first approach addresses the problem of channel assignment in multichannel ad hoc networks with limited number of interfaces, where stable route are more preferred to be selected. The channel selection is based on link quality between the nodes. Geographical information is used with mapping algorithm in order to estimate and predict the links’ quality and routes life time, which is combined with Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to find most stable route with high data rate. As a result, a better utilization of the channels is performed where the throughput increased up to 74% over ASAR protocol. A new smart data packet routing protocol is developed based on the River Formation Dynamics (RFD) algorithm. The RFD algorithm is a subset of swarm intelligence which mimics how rivers are created in nature. The protocol is a distributed swarm learning approach where data packets are smart enough to guide themselves through best available route in the network. The learning information is distributed throughout the nodes of the network. This information can be used and updated by successive data packets in order to maintain and find better routes. Data packets act like swarm agents (drops) where they carry their path information and update routing information without the need for backward agents. These data packets modify the routing information based on different network metrics. As a result, data packet can guide themselves through better routes. In the second approach, a hybrid ACO and RFD smart data packet routing protocol is developed where the protocol tries to find shortest path that is less congested to the destination. Simulation results show throughput improvement by 30% over AODV protocol and 13% over AntHocNet. Both delay and jitter have been improved more than 96% over AODV protocol. In order to overcome the problem of source routing introduced due to the use of the ACO algorithm, a solely RFD based distance vector protocol has been developed as a third approach. Moreover, the protocol separates reactive learned information from proactive learned information to add more reliability to data routing. To minimize the power consumption introduced due to the hybrid nature of the RFD routing protocol, a forth approach has been developed. This protocol tackles the problem of power consumption and adds packets delivery power minimization to the protocol based on RFD algorithm. Finally, a security model based on reputation and trust is added to the smart data packet protocol in order to detect misbehaving nodes. A trust system has been built based on the privilege offered by the RFD algorithm, where drops are always moving from higher altitude to lower one. Moreover, the distributed and undefined nature of the ad hoc network forces the nodes to obligate to cooperative behaviour in order not to be exposed. This system can easily and quickly detect misbehaving nodes according to altitude difference between active intermediate nodes

An efficient broadcasting routing protocol WAODV in mobile ad hoc networks

Information broadcasting in wireless network is a necessary building block for cooperative operations. However, the broadcasting causes increases the routing overhead. This paper brings together an array of tools of our adaptive protocol for information broadcasting in MANETs. The proposed protocol in this paper named WAODV (WAIT-AODV). This new adaptive routing discovery protocol for MANETs, lets in nodes to pick out a fantastic motion: both to retransmit receiving request route request (RREQ) messages, to discard, or to wait earlier than making any decision, which dynamically confgures the routing discovery feature to decide a gorgeous motion through the usage of neighbors’ knowledge. Simulations have been conducted to show the effectiveness of the using of techniques adaptive protocol for information broadcasting RREQ packet when integrated into ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocols for MANET (which is based on simple flooding)

Energy efficient and secure wireless communications for wireless sensor networks

This dissertation considers wireless sensor networks (WSNs) operating in severe environments where energy efficiency and security are important factors. This main aim of this research is to improve routing protocols in WSNs to ensure efficient energy usage and protect against attacks (especially energy draining attacks) targeting WSNs. An enhancement of the existing AODV (Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector) routing protocol for energy efficiency, called AODV-Energy Harvesting Aware (AODVEHA), is proposed and evaluated. It not only inherits the advantages of AODV which are well suited to ad hoc networks, but also makes use of the energy harvesting capability of sensor nodes in the network. In addition to the investigation of energy efficiency, another routing protocol called Secure and Energy Aware Routing Protocol (ETARP) designed for energy efficiency and security of WSNs is presented. The key part of the ETARP is route selection based on utility theory, which is a novel approach to simultaneously factor energy efficiency and trustworthiness of routes in the routing protocol. Finally, this dissertation proposes a routing protocol to protect against a specific type of resource depletion attack called Vampire attacks. The proposed resource-conserving protection against energy draining (RCPED) protocol is independent of cryptographic methods, which brings advantage of less energy cost and hardware requirement. RCPED collaborates with existing routing protocols, detects abnormal sign of Vampire attacks and determines the possible attackers. Then routes are discovered and selected on the basis of maximum priority, where the priority that reflects the energy efficiency and safety level of route is calculated by means of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed analytic model for the aforementioned routing solutions are verified by simulations. Simulations results validate the improvements of proposed routing approaches in terms of better energy efficiency and guarantee of security

Smart Wireless Sensor Networks

The recent development of communication and sensor technology results in the growth of a new attractive and challenging area - wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A wireless sensor network which consists of a large number of sensor nodes is deployed in environmental fields to serve various applications. Facilitated with the ability of wireless communication and intelligent computation, these nodes become smart sensors which do not only perceive ambient physical parameters but also be able to process information, cooperate with each other and self-organize into the network. These new features assist the sensor nodes as well as the network to operate more efficiently in terms of both data acquisition and energy consumption. Special purposes of the applications require design and operation of WSNs different from conventional networks such as the internet. The network design must take into account of the objectives of specific applications. The nature of deployed environment must be considered. The limited of sensor nodes� resources such as memory, computational ability, communication bandwidth and energy source are the challenges in network design. A smart wireless sensor network must be able to deal with these constraints as well as to guarantee the connectivity, coverage, reliability and security of network's operation for a maximized lifetime. This book discusses various aspects of designing such smart wireless sensor networks. Main topics includes: design methodologies, network protocols and algorithms, quality of service management, coverage optimization, time synchronization and security techniques for sensor networks

Mobile Ad hoc Networking: Imperatives and Challenges

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self-organize into arbitrary and temporary, "ad-hoc" network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internetwork in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyperlan are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of this dynamic field. It first explains the important role that mobile ad hoc networks play in the evolution of future wireless technologies. Then, it reviews the latest research activities in these areas, including a summary of MANET\u27s characteristics, capabilities, applications, and design constraints. The paper concludes by presenting a set of challenges and problems requiring further research in the future

Security techniques for sensor systems and the Internet of Things

Sensor systems are becoming pervasive in many domains, and are recently being generalized by the Internet of Things (IoT). This wide deployment, however, presents significant security issues. We develop security techniques for sensor systems and IoT, addressing all security management phases. Prior to deployment, the nodes need to be hardened. We develop nesCheck, a novel approach that combines static analysis and dynamic checking to efficiently enforce memory safety on TinyOS applications. As security guarantees come at a cost, determining which resources to protect becomes important. Our solution, OptAll, leverages game-theoretic techniques to determine the optimal allocation of security resources in IoT networks, taking into account fixed and variable costs, criticality of different portions of the network, and risk metrics related to a specified security goal. Monitoring IoT devices and sensors during operation is necessary to detect incidents. We design Kalis, a knowledge-driven intrusion detection technique for IoT that does not target a single protocol or application, and adapts the detection strategy to the network features. As the scale of IoT makes the devices good targets for botnets, we design Heimdall, a whitelist-based anomaly detection technique for detecting and protecting against IoT-based denial of service attacks. Once our monitoring tools detect an attack, determining its actual cause is crucial to an effective reaction. We design a fine-grained analysis tool for sensor networks that leverages resident packet parameters to determine whether a packet loss attack is node- or link-related and, in the second case, locate the attack source. Moreover, we design a statistical model for determining optimal system thresholds by exploiting packet parameters variances. With our techniques\u27 diagnosis information, we develop Kinesis, a security incident response system for sensor networks designed to recover from attacks without significant interruption, dynamically selecting response actions while being lightweight in communication and energy overhead