SeLoc: Secure Localization for Wireless Sensor and Actor Network

Abstract

The need for efficient and secure localization is an important issue in a scalable self-organizing network. However, exiting secure solutions are not well suitable or effective for wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) because of the features of WSANs (e.g. node heterogeneity). In this paper, we propose a novel approach (SeLoc) to secure localization for WSAN based on DV-Hop and hidden actors. After passively receiving authentication messages and minimum hop numbers from sensor nodes, these nearby actors distributively compute these sensors' location by actor-actor coordination and maximum likelihood estimators (MLE). By filtering inaccurate/false localization information, the SeLoc localization scheme can prevent these location attacks and improve the accuracy of localization. In addition, we also propose the voting-based location verification scheme in this paper. This verification scheme cannot only effectively decrease the success probability of attack, but also tolerate attacks to some extend. The analysis shows that SeLoc scheme is robust against location attacks and against other attacks like wormhole attacks, Sybile attacks. Also, comparing with other infrastructure-centric localization schemes, SeLoc scheme is energy saving, economical and secure for WSAN by fully using the features of WSAN