Maintaining trajectory privacy in mobile wireless sensor networks

Mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSN) is a subdomain of wireless sensor networks in which sensors and/or sinks are mobile. In this study, we propose a scheme for providing trajectory privacy of mobile sink nodes. The proposed scheme is based on random distribution of data packets. Moreover, sensor nodes do not use location information of the mobile sink or its trajectory. We performed simulation based and analytical performance evaluations for the proposed scheme. The results show that a network with up to 99% data delivery rate can be obtained by appropriate configuration while maintaining a fair level of trajectory privacy of the mobile sink node

Energy efficient privacy preserved data gathering in wireless sensor networks having multiple sinks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) generally have a many-to-one structure so that event information flows from sensors to a unique sink. In recent WSN applications, many-tomany structures are evolved due to need for conveying collected event information to multiple sinks at the same time. This study proposes an anonymity method bases on k-anonymity for preventing record disclosure of collected event information in WSNs. Proposed method takes the anonymity requirements of multiple sinks into consideration by providing different levels of privacy for each destination sink. Attributes, which may identify of an event owner, are generalized or encrypted in order to meet the different anonymity requirements of sinks. Privacy guaranteed event information can be multicasted to all sinks instead of sending to each sink one by one. Since minimization of energy consumption is an important design criteria for WSNs, our method enables us to multicast the same event information to multiple sinks and reduce energy consumption

Privacy models in wireless sensor networks: a survey

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are attracting attention from the research community. One of the key issues is to provide them with privacy protection. In recent years, a huge amount of contributions has been focused on this area. Surveys and literature reviews have also been produced to give a systematic view of the different approaches taken. However, no previous work has focused on privacy models, that is, the set of assumptions made to build the approach. In particular, this paper focuses on this matter by studying 41 papers of the last 5 years. We highlight the great differences appearing among related papers that could make them incompatible to be applied simultaneously. We propose a set of guidelines to build comprehensive privacy models so as to foster their comparability and suitability analysis for different scenarios.This work was supported by the MINECO Grant TIN2013-46469-R (Security and Privacy in the Internet of You (SPINY)) and the CAM Grant S2013/ICE-3095 (Cybersecurity,Data, and Risks (CIBERDINE)), which is cofunded by EuropeanFunds (FEDER). Furthermore, J.M. de Fuentes and L. González-Manzano were also partially supported by the Programa de Ayudas a la Movilidad of Carlos III University of Madrid

THE-FAME: THreshold based Energy-efficient FAtigue MEasurment for Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks using Multiple Sinks

Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN) is a technology employed mainly for patient health monitoring. New research is being done to take the technology to the next level i.e. player's fatigue monitoring in sports. Muscle fatigue is the main cause of player's performance degradation. This type of fatigue can be measured by sensing the accumulation of lactic acid in muscles. Excess of lactic acid makes muscles feel lethargic. Keeping this in mind we propose a protocol \underline{TH}reshold based \underline{E}nergy-efficient \underline{FA}tigue \underline{ME}asurement (THE-FAME) for soccer players using WBASN. In THE-FAME protocol, a composite parameter has been used that consists of a threshold parameter for lactic acid accumulation and a parameter for measuring distance covered by a particular player. When any parameters's value in this composite parameter shows an increase beyond threshold, the players is declared to be in a fatigue state. The size of battery and sensor should be very small for the sake of players' best performance. These sensor nodes, implanted inside player's body, are made energy efficient by using multiple sinks instead of a single sink. Matlab simulation results show the effectiveness of THE-FAME.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc

Context-aware Dynamic Discovery and Configuration of 'Things' in Smart Environments

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a dynamic global information network consisting of Internet-connected objects, such as RFIDs, sensors, actuators, as well as other instruments and smart appliances that are becoming an integral component of the future Internet. Currently, such Internet-connected objects or `things' outnumber both people and computers connected to the Internet and their population is expected to grow to 50 billion in the next 5 to 10 years. To be able to develop IoT applications, such `things' must become dynamically integrated into emerging information networks supported by architecturally scalable and economically feasible Internet service delivery models, such as cloud computing. Achieving such integration through discovery and configuration of `things' is a challenging task. Towards this end, we propose a Context-Aware Dynamic Discovery of {Things} (CADDOT) model. We have developed a tool SmartLink, that is capable of discovering sensors deployed in a particular location despite their heterogeneity. SmartLink helps to establish the direct communication between sensor hardware and cloud-based IoT middleware platforms. We address the challenge of heterogeneity using a plug in architecture. Our prototype tool is developed on an Android platform. Further, we employ the Global Sensor Network (GSN) as the IoT middleware for the proof of concept validation. The significance of the proposed solution is validated using a test-bed that comprises 52 Arduino-based Libelium sensors.Comment: Big Data and Internet of Things: A Roadmap for Smart Environments, Studies in Computational Intelligence book series, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 201

Security in Wireless Sensor Networks: Issues and Challenges

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an emerging technology that shows great promise for various futuristic applications both for mass public and military. The sensing technology combined with processing power and wireless communication makes it lucrative for being exploited in abundance in future. The inclusion of wireless communication technology also incurs various types of security threats. The intent of this paper is to investigate the security related issues and challenges in wireless sensor networks. We identify the security threats, review proposed security mechanisms for wireless sensor networks. We also discuss the holistic view of security for ensuring layered and robust security in wireless sensor networks.Comment: 6 page

TKP: Three level key pre-distribution with mobile sinks for wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are by its nature prone to various forms of security attacks. Authentication and secure communication have become the need of the day. Due to single point failure of a sink node or base station, mobile sinks are better in many wireless sensor networks applications for efficient data collection or aggregation, localized sensor reprogramming and for revoking compromised sensors. The existing sytems that make use of key predistribution schemes for pairwise key establishment between sensor nodes and mobile sinks, deploying mobile sinks for data collection has drawbacks. Here, an attacker can easily obtain many keys by capturing a few nodes and can gain control of the network by deploying a node preloaded with some compromised keys that will be the replica of compromised mobile sink. We propose an efficient three level key predistribution framework that uses any pairwise key predistribution in different levels. The new framework has two set of key pools one set of keys for the mobile sink nodes to access the sensor network and other set of keys for secure communication among the sensor nodes. It reduces the damage caused by mobile sink replication attack and stationary access node replication attack. To further reduce the communication time it uses a shortest distance to make pair between the nodes for comunication. Through results, we show that our security framework has a higher network resilience to a mobile sink replication attack as compared to the polynomial pool-based scheme with less communication tim

Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost, WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process (MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs

Protecting the Communication Structure in Sensor Networks

In the near future wireless sensor networks will be employed in a wide variety of applications establishing ubiquitous networks that will pervade society. The inherent vulnerability of these massively deployed networks to a multitude of threats, including physical tampering with nodes exacerbates concerns about privacy and security. For example, denial of service attacks (DoS) that compromise or disrupt communications or target nodes serving key roles in the network, e.g. sink nodes, can easily undermine the functionality as well as the performance delivered by the network. Particularly vulnerable are the components of the communications or operation infrastructure. Although, by construction, most sensor network systems do not possess a built-in infrastructure, a virtual infrastructure, that may include a coordinate system, a cluster structure, and designated communication paths, may be established post-deployment in support of network management and operation. Since knowledge of this virtual infrastructure can be instrumental for successfully compromising network security, maintaining the anonymity of the virtual infrastructure is a primary security concern. Somewhat surprisingly, in spite of its importance, the anonymity problem has not been addressed in wireless sensor networks. The main contribution of this work is to propose an energy-efficient protocol for maintaining the anonymity of the virtual infrastructure in a class of sensor network systems. Our solution defines schemes for randomizing communications such that the cluster structure, and coordinate system used remain undetectable and in visible to an observer of network traffic during both the setup and operation phases of the network