Intrusion tolerance and anti-traffic analysis strategies for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks face acute security concerns in applications such as battlefield monitoring. A central point of failure in a sensor network is the base station, which acts as a collection point of sensor data. In this paper, we investigate two attacks that can lead to isolation or failure of the base station. In one set of attacks, the base station is isolated by blocking communication between sensor nodes and the base station, e.g. by DOS attacks. In the second attack, the location of the base station is deduced by analyzing data traffic towards the base station, which can lead to jamming and/or discovery and destruction of the base station. To defend against these attacks, two secure strategies are proposed. First, secure multi-path routing to multiple destination base stations is designed to provide intrusion tolerance against isolation of a base station. Second, anti-traffic analysis strategies are proposed to help disguise the location of the base station from eavesdroppers. A performance evaluation is provided for a simulated sensor network, as well as measurements of cryptographic overhead on real sensor nodes.