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

Multi-stage secure clusterhead selection using discrete rule-set against unknown attacks in wireless sensor network

Security is the rising concern of the wireless network as there are various forms of reonfigurable network that is arised from it. Wireless sensor network (WSN) is one such example that is found to be an integral part of cyber-physical system in upcoming times. After reviewing the existing system, it can be seen that there are less dominant and robust solutions towards mitigating the threats of upcoming applications of WSN. Therefore, this paper introduces a simple and cost-effective modelling of a security system that offers security by ensuring secure selection of clusterhead during the data aggregation process in WSN. The proposed system also makes construct a rule-set in order to learn the nature of the communication iin order to have a discrete knowledge about the intensity of adversaries. With an aid of simulation-based approach over MEMSIC nodes, the proposed system was proven to offer reduced energy consumption with good data delivery performance in contrast to existing approach

Analysis of Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol

Sensor network consists of tiny sensors and actuators with general purpose computing elements to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, pressure, etc. Wireless Sensor Networks are uniquely characterized by properties like limited power they can harvest or store, dynamic network topology, large scale of deployment. Sensor networks have a huge application in fields which includes habitat monitoring, object tracking, fire detection, land slide detection and traffic monitoring. Based on the network topology, routing protocols in sensor networks can be classified as flat-based routing, hierarchical-based routing and location-based routing. These protocols are quite simple and hence are very susceptible to attacks like Sinkhole attack, Selective forwarding, Sybil attack, Wormholes, HELLO flood attack, Acknowledgement spoofing or altering, replaying routing information. Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is an energy-efficient hierarchical-based routing protocol. Our prime focus was on the analysis of LEACH based upon certain parameters like network lifetime, stability period, etc. and also the effect of selective forwarding attack and degree of heterogeneity on LEACH protocol. After a number of simulations, it was found that the stability region’s length is considerably increased by choosing an optimal value of heterogeneity; energy is not properly utilized and throughput is decreased in networks compromised by selective forwarding attack but the number of cluster-heads per round remains unaffected in such networks

Cryptographic key distribuition in sensor networks

Orientador: Ricardo DahabTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Redes de Sensores Sem Fio (RSSFs) são compostas em sua maioria por pequenos nós sensores dotados de recursos extremamente limitados. Estes, por sua vez, se comunicam com o mundo externo através de nós poderosos chamados de sorvedouros ou estações rádio base. RSSFs são empregadas com o objetivo de monitorar regiões, oferecendo dados sobre a área monitorada para o resto do sistema. Tais redes podem ser utilizadas para diferentes aplicações, tais como operações de resgate em áreas de conflito/desastre, espionagem industrial e detecção de exploração ilegal de recursos naturais. Em RSSFs existem aplicações críticas nas quais propriedades de segurança são de vital importância. Segurança, por sua vez, é comumente alavancada através de esquemas de distribuição de chaves. A maioria dos padrões de distribuição de chaves presentes na literatura, todavia, não são apropriados para RSSFs: métodos baseados em esquemas de chave pública convencionais, devido aos seus requisitos de processamento e banda; chaves de grupo, em função das suas vulnerabilidades de segurança; e chaves par-a-par (pairwise), por causa da baixa escalabilidade. Um outro dado é que há uma vasta gama de arquiteturas propostas para RSSFs e que uma mesma técnica de distribuição de chaves pode ser a melhor para uma, mas não para outra, visto que diferentes arquiteturas de rede exibem padrões de comunicação distintos. Em outras palavras, não existe uma panacéia, e mecanismos de distribuição de chaves para RSSFs devem, portanto, levar em consideração as idiossincrasias das arquiteturas para as quais são projetadas. Tudo isso torna extremamente difícil e desafiadora a tarefa de dotar RSSFs de segurança. O objetivo deste trabalho foi propor soluções de distribuição de chaves que, concomitantemente, (i) fossem compatíveis com os recursos dos sensores e (ii) considerassem as particularidades das arquiteturas para as quais são propostas. Como será mostrado ao longo desta tese, iniciamos nosso trabalho com soluções personalizadas para certas arquiteturas de RSSFs e evoluímos para soluções flexíveis em que a segurança é alavancada de forma não interativa - o que é ideal para este tipo de rede. Até onde sabemos, nosso trabalho é pioneiro em soluções de segurança para RSSFs hierárquicas e em distribuição de chaves de forma autenticada e não interativa, usando Criptografia Baseada em Identidade, neste tipo de rede.Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are ad hoc networks comprised mainly of small sensor nodes with limited resources and one or more base stations, which are much more powerful laptop-class nodes that connect the sensor nodes to the rest of the world. WSNs are used for monitoring purposes, providing information about the area being monitored to the rest of the system. Application areas range from battlefield reconnaissance and emergency rescue operations to surveillance and environmental protection. There are also critical WSN applications in which security properties are of paramount importance. Security, in turn, is frequently bootstrapped through key distribution schemes. Most of the key distribution techniques, however, are ill-suited to WSNs: public key based distribution, because of its processing and bandwidth requirements; global keying, because of its security vulnerabilities; complete pairwise keying, because of its memory requirements. It is worth noting, however, that a large number of WSN architectures have been proposed and a key distribution solution that is well suited to one architecture is likely not to be the best for another, as different network architectures exhibit different communication patterns. In other words, there is no panacea and the design of a key distribution scheme must therefore be driven by the peculiarities of the WSN architecture in question. This all makes extremely hard and challenging the objective of securing WSNs. In this work, we aimed at proposing key distribution schemes that are both (i) lightweight and (ii) able to fulfill architecture-specific needs. As it will be shown throughout this thesis, we began our work with customized solutions for certain types of WSNs and then, subsequently, turned our attention to more flexible solutions, where security is bootstrapped in a non-interactive way through the use of Identity-Based Cryptography.DoutoradoTeoria da ComputaçãoDoutor em Ciência da Computaçã

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

PAWN: a payload-based mutual authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of resource-starving miniature sensor nodes deployed in a remote and hostile environment. These networks operate on small batteries for days, months, and even years depending on the requirements of monitored applications. The battery-powered operation and inaccessible human terrains make it practically infeasible to recharge the nodes unless some energy-scavenging techniques are used. These networks experience threats at various layers and, as such, are vulnerable to a wide range of attacks. The resource-constrained nature of sensor nodes, inaccessible human terrains, and error-prone communication links make it obligatory to design lightweight but robust and secured schemes for these networks. In view of these limitations, we aim to design an extremely lightweight payload-based mutual authentication scheme for a cluster-based hierarchical WSN. The proposed scheme, also known as payload-based mutual authentication for WSNs, operates in 2 steps. First, an optimal percentage of cluster heads is elected, authenticated, and allowed to communicate with neighboring nodes. Second, each cluster head, in a role of server, authenticates the nearby nodes for cluster formation. We validate our proposed scheme using various simulation metrics that outperform the existing schemes

Performance and security measure of clustering protocols for sensor networks

Micro sensor nodes are now easily available and are very cheap. These resource constrained nodes are spread in remote locations to gather data. There are some energy efficient clustering protocols that are known to work well for sensor networks. The performance of these algorithms are mainly measured by the their energy consumption. In this thesis, we develop a performance measure for these algorithms that includes the energy spent, the time delay incurred in the whole process and the information loss. We have formulated a novel metric, the entropy based information loss metric, which to the best of our knowledge has not been previously addressed. We then optimize the joint performance measure which is a combination of these different metrics to yield the optimal clustering configuration.;Security is a key concern in many sensor network scenarios. In this thesis we analyze the performance differences in existing clustering protocols when security is added. In particular, we analyze how the optimal configuration of the LEACH protocol changes when we apply a pre deployment key distribution based security protocol to it.;The final contribution of this thesis is a new secure clustering protocol for sensor networks. In particular, this is a grid based secure solution to a commonly used clustering protocol, the LEACH protocol. We show that our protocol, the GS-LEACH protocol is more energy efficient than any of the existing secure flavors of LEACH. In addition, our protocol is more scalable to regions of different shapes and sizes and provides uniform coverage due to the grid structure of the clusters, thereby guaranteeing a better quality of the information collected

Armor-LEACH for Wireless Sensor Network

© ASEE 2008The use of sensor networks is increasing day by day; which offer more research topics to be discuss and modified; one of these topics is the power consumption that has to be reduced as possible, where the resources are limited; another topic is the security level that should be offer by such kind of networks. Clustered networks have been proposed in many papers to reduce the power consumption in sensor networks. LEACH is one of the most interested techniques that offer an efficient way to minimize the power consumption in sensor networks. TCCA provides LEACH with higher performance, by applying some modification to the way LEACH works. In this paper we combine two of the most powerful proposed techniques that can be applied on LEACH to reduce the power consumption and to increase the level of security