TY - GEN
T1 - Defending malicious collision attacks in wireless sensor networks
AU - Reindl, Phillip
AU - Nygard, Kendall
AU - Du, Xiaojiang
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Security is an important issue for sensor networks deployed in hostile environments, such as military battlefields. The low cost requirement precludes the use of tamper resistant hardware on tiny sensor nodes. Hence, sensor nodes deployed in open areas can be compromised and used to carry out various attacks on the network. In this paper, we consider the collision attack that can be easily launched by a compromised (or hostile) node: a compromised node does not follow the medium access control protocol and cause collisions with neighbor transmissions by sending a short noise packet. This attack does not consume much energy of the attacker but can cause a lot of disruptions to the network operation. Due to the wireless broadcast nature, it is not trivial to identify the attacker. In this paper, we propose a distributed scheme that is based on low-cost hardware and can effectively identify the source of a collision attack. Our scheme is based on analyzing physical-layer Received Signal Strength Index (RSSI) readings. We show that correct identification of an adversarial node can be achieved with greater than 85% accuracy. We further present a technique that degrades gracefully as the background noise increases.
AB - Security is an important issue for sensor networks deployed in hostile environments, such as military battlefields. The low cost requirement precludes the use of tamper resistant hardware on tiny sensor nodes. Hence, sensor nodes deployed in open areas can be compromised and used to carry out various attacks on the network. In this paper, we consider the collision attack that can be easily launched by a compromised (or hostile) node: a compromised node does not follow the medium access control protocol and cause collisions with neighbor transmissions by sending a short noise packet. This attack does not consume much energy of the attacker but can cause a lot of disruptions to the network operation. Due to the wireless broadcast nature, it is not trivial to identify the attacker. In this paper, we propose a distributed scheme that is based on low-cost hardware and can effectively identify the source of a collision attack. Our scheme is based on analyzing physical-layer Received Signal Strength Index (RSSI) readings. We show that correct identification of an adversarial node can be achieved with greater than 85% accuracy. We further present a technique that degrades gracefully as the background noise increases.
KW - Collision attacks
KW - Security
KW - Sensor networks
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79951778676&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79951778676&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/EUC.2010.121
DO - 10.1109/EUC.2010.121
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:79951778676
SN - 9780769543222
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, EUC 2010
SP - 771
EP - 776
BT - Proceedings - IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, EUC 2010
T2 - IEEE/IFIP 8th International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, EUC 2010
Y2 - 11 December 2010 through 13 December 2010
ER -