Securing Ad-Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks: Working with What the Node Can Offer

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are considered to be one of the most important technologies of the 21st century. As a result, WSNs have been used in numerous applications in industry, health monitoring, environmental monitoring, and other related fields. However, the unprotected nature of WSN protocols such as the Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Protocol makes them prone to malicious attacks. One such attack is the replay attack. A single sensor node has limited computation and communication capabilities, but processing routing information through data structures with acceptable time and space complexity can lead to secure data acquisition and sensing. Sensor nodes have limited energy resources, so this attack can have a serious impact on network functionality. In this work, Bloom filters are used to identify the legitimacy of a packet. Sensor nodes will be able to distinguish between legitimate and replayed packets along a path, thus improving a node's decision as to whether it should transmit or discard the received packet.