Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs): Security and Privacy Issues and Solutions

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have become one of the current research areas, and it proves to be a very supportive technology for various applications such as environmental-, military-, health-, home-, and office-based applications. WSN can either be mobile wireless sensor network (MWSN) or static wireless sensor network (SWSN). MWSN is a specialized wireless network consisting of considerable number of mobile sensors, however the instability of its topology introduces several performance issues during data routing. SWSNs consisting of static nodes with static topology also share some of the security challenges of MWSNs due to some constraints associated with the sensor nodes. Security, privacy, computation and energy constraints, and reliability issues are the major challenges facing WSNs, especially during routing. To solve these challenges, WSN routing protocols must ensure confidentiality, integrity, privacy preservation, and reliability in the network. Thus, efficient and energy-aware countermeasures have to be designed to prevent intrusion in the network. In this chapter, we describe different forms of WSNs, challenges, solutions, and a point-to-point multi-hop-based secure solution for effective routing in WSNs

S-PkSec: an asymmetric key based security management scheme for sensor network operation

This paper proposes a public key based management scheme for secure sensor network operation namely S-PkSec (Public Key Based Security for Sensor Networks) and emphasizes detailed comparison with some similar type of schemes. Although there was a wide held belief of the incompatibility of public key cryptographic (PKC) schemes for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), some recent works have shown that, PKC or asymmetric key based schemes could be implemented for such networks in some ways. The major challenge of employing a PKC scheme in sensor network is posed by the limitations of resources of the tiny sensors. Considering this feature of the sensors, we enhance our previous work [1] with some effective comparisons and energy analysis with other two established asymmetric key based protocols. S-PkSec comprises basically of two parts; a key handshaking scheme based on simple linear operations and the derivation of decryption key by a receiver node. S-PkSec allows both base-station-to-node or node-to-base-station secure communications, and node-to-node secure communications. Analysis and simulation results show that, our proposed architecture ensures a good level of security for communications in the network and could effectively be implemented using the limited computation, memory and energy budgets of the current generation sensor nodes

Enhancing Security and Energy Efficiency in Wireless Sensor Network Routing with IOT Challenges: A Thorough Review

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have emerged as a crucial component in the field of networking due to their cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and compact size, making them invaluable for various applications. However, as the reliance on WSN-dependent applications continues to grow, these networks grapple with inherent limitations such as memory and computational constraints. Therefore, effective solutions require immediate attention, especially in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), which largely relies on the effectiveness of WSNs. This study undertakes a comprehensive review of research conducted between 2018 and 2020, categorizing it into six main domains: 1) Providing an overview of WSN applications, management, and security considerations. 2) Focusing on routing and energy-saving techniques. 3) Reviewing the development of methods for information gathering, emphasizing data integrity and privacy. 4) Emphasizing connectivity and positioning techniques. 5) Examining studies that explore the integration of IoT technology into WSNs with an eye on secure data transmission. 6) Highlighting research efforts aimed at energy efficiency. The study addresses the motivation behind employing WSN applications in IoT technologies, as well as the challenges, obstructions, and solutions related to their application and development. It underscores that energy consumption remains a paramount issue in WSNs, with untapped potential for improving energy efficiency while ensuring robust security. Furthermore, it identifies existing approaches' weaknesses, rendering them inadequate for achieving energy-efficient routing in secure WSNs. This review sheds light on the critical challenges and opportunities in the field, contributing to a deeper understanding of WSNs and their role in secure IoT applications

A survey on network security and attack defense mechanism for wireless sensor networks.

Abstract: The severe constraints and demanding deployment environments of wireless sensor networks make security for these systems more challenging than for conventional networks. However, several properties of sensor networks may help address the challenge of building secure networks. The unique aspects of sensor networks may allow novel defenses not available in conventional networks. In this paper, we investigate the security related issues and challenges in wireless sensor networks. We identify the security threats, review proposed security mechanisms for wireless sensor networks

Modeling and simulation of jamming attacks in WLAN

Wireless local area networks (WLAN) are one of the most widely used technologies in our daily lives. Instead of being limited to the range of wired equipment, users can communicate freely. However, since wireless networks are based on communication within radio channels, WLANs are susceptible to malicious attempts to block the channel. One of the most frequently used attacks is a Denial of Service (DoS) attack known as a jamming attack. Jamming attacks interfere with the transmission channels by constantly sending useless packets in order to disturb the communication between legitimate nodes. In real wireless networks where users communicate constantly, a jamming attack can cause serious problems. Because of this, a study of jamming attacks and how to prevent them is necessary. In this thesis, the jamming attacks were simulated in WLAN using OPNET Modeler, in order to provide a better understanding of jamming attacks. This study will be helpful for future research and development of a practical, effective way to avoid jamming attacks. The objectives of this thesis were to simulate client-server and ad-hoc networks and different jammers; launch jamming attacks in order to test how much influence different jammers have in WLAN communications; and to compare the performances of different ad-hoc routing protocols.  M.S

An Efficient Identity-Based Key Management Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks Using the Bloom Filter

With the rapid development and widespread adoption of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), security has become an increasingly prominent problem. How to establish a session key in node communication is a challenging task for WSNs. Considering the limitations in WSNs, such as low computing capacity, small memory, power supply limitations and price, we propose an efficient identity-based key management (IBKM) scheme, which exploits the Bloom filter to authenticate the communication sensor node with storage efficiency. The security analysis shows that IBKM can prevent several attacks effectively with acceptable computation and communication overhead

Permutation

Abstract � In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), security and economy of energy are two important and necessary aspects to consider. Particularly, security helps to ensure that such a network is not subject to attacks that involve reading, modification or destruction of information. This paper presents a protocol for permutation routing, which is secure, fault tolerant and energy-efficient. The proposed protocol is based on two main principles. First, the use of a heterogeneous hierarchical clustered structure to assign the most important roles to the sensors having the most energy, in order to ensure the protection and routing of data items. Second, the use of multiple processes based on this structure to ensure, regardless of network and sensors status, no data is lost and that a data item from a point A to a point B always arrives safety. This is the first protocol that provides such a QoS per permutation routing. 1