Applicability and Realization of Security in Leach Protocol in WSNs

WSN is a collaborative network of a large number of loosely connected nodes. The intense deployment of such networks over varied topographic regions ranging from a few meters to several hundreds of kilometres is feasible by setting up small, low cost devices which are capable of monitoring the physical world around them by collecting status information and then converting this into radio signals. These signals are then transmitted to a local sink. Keywords: WSNs, Leach, Noad etc

Routing in Sensor Networks: Performance and Security in clustered networks

© ASEE 2008Due to high restrictions in sensor network, where the resources are limited, clustering protocols for routing organization have been proposed in much research for increasing system throughput, decreasing system delay and saving energy. Even these algorithms have proposed some levels of security, but because of their dynamic nature of communication, most of their security solutions are not suitable. In this paper we focus on how to apply the highest possible level of security to sensor networks and at the same time increase the performance of these networks by changing the way that sensors communicate with each other

Secure Routing Optimization in Hierarchical Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

Popularity of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is increasing continuously in different domains of daily life, as they provide efficient method of collecting valuable data from the surroundings for use in different applications. Routing in WSNs is the vital functionality that allows the flow of information generated by sensor nodes to the base station, while considering the severe energy constraint and the limitations of computational and storage resources. Indeed, this functionality may be vulnerable and must be in itself secured, since conventional routing protocols in WSNs provide efficient routing techniques with low power consumption, but they do not take into account the possible attacks. As sensor nodes may be easily captured and compromised, the classical cryptographic solutions become insufficient to provide optimal routing security, especially, for cluster-based WSNs, where cluster heads can be still among the compromised nodes. In this work, we propose a hierarchical, robust and well-adapted intrusion detection system, named THIDS, which is intended to be integrated into the secure hierarchical cluster-based routing protocols. We have chosen the protocol RLEACH to be equipped with the proposed IDS. The results of simulation performed under NS2 simulator show that the resulting protocol ORLEACH is much more resistant to compromised nodes exercising the most dangerous attacks

Securing Cluster Head Selection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor network routing protocols are prone to various attacks as these protocols mainly provide the function of routing data towards the sink. LEACH is a one of the routing protocol used for clustered implementation of wireless sensor network with Received Signal Strength based dynamic selection of Cluster Heads. But, as with other routing protocols, LEACH is also prone to HELLO flood attack when the malicious sensor node becomes the Cluster Head. Cryptographic and non-cryptographic approaches to detect the presence of HELLO flood attack also exist but they lack efficiency in some way. In this paper, an efficient protocol is proposed for the detection and prevention of HELLO Flood attack in wireless sensor network. Cluster heads are vulnerable to various malicious attacks and this greatly affects the performance of the wireless sensor network. Cryptographic approaches to prevent this attack are not so helpful though some non-cryptographic methods to detect the HELLO Flood attack also exist but they are not too efficient as they result in large test packet overhead. In this paper, we propose HRSRP (Hello flood attack Resistant Secure Routing Protocol) extension to LEACH protocol so as to protect the cluster head against Hello flood attack. HRSRP is base on encryption using Armstrong number and decryption using AES algorithm to verify the identity of cluster head. The proposed technique is implemented in NS2, the experimental results clearly indicate the proposed technique has significant capability for the detection of hello flood attack launched for making the malicious node as the cluster head

Sensor authentication in collaborating sensor networks

In this thesis, we address a new security problem in the realm of collaborating sensor networks. By collaborating sensor networks, we refer to the networks of sensor networks collaborating on a mission, with each sensor network is independently owned and operated by separate entities. Such networks are practical where a number of independent entities can deploy their own sensor networks in multi-national, commercial, and environmental scenarios, and some of these networks will integrate complementary functionalities for a mission. In the scenario, we address an authentication problem wherein the goal is for the Operator Oi of Sensor Network Si to correctly determine the number of active sensors in Network Si. Such a problem is challenging in collaborating sensor networks where other sensor networks, despite showing an intent to collaborate, may not be completely trustworthy and could compromise the authentication process. We propose two authentication protocols to address this problem. Our protocols rely on Physically Unclonable Functions, which are a hardware based authentication primitive exploiting inherent randomness in circuit fabrication. Our protocols are light-weight, energy efficient, and highly secure against a number of attacks. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first to addresses a practical security problem in collaborating sensor networks. --Abstract, page iii

Secure Cluster Head Sensor Elections Using Signal Strength Estimation and Ordered Transmissions

In clustered sensor networks, electing CHs (Cluster Heads) in a secure manner is very important because they collect data from sensors and send the aggregated data to the sink. If a compromised node is elected as a CH, it can illegally acquire data from all the members and even send forged data to the sink. Nevertheless, most of the existing CH election schemes have not treated the problem of the secure CH election. Recently, random value based protocols have been proposed to resolve the secure CH election problem. However, these schemes cannot prevent an attacker from suppressing its contribution for the change of CH election result and from selectively forwarding its contribution for the disagreement of CH election result. In this paper, we propose a modified random value scheme to prevent these disturbances. Our scheme dynamically adjusts the forwarding order of contributions and discards a received contribution when its signal strength is lower than the specified level to prevent these malicious actions. The simulation results have shown that our scheme effectively prevents attackers from changing and splitting an agreement of CH election result. Also, they have shown that our scheme is relatively energy-efficient than other schemes