LEGO-EATO: A Novel Energy-Aware Traffic Obfuscation System for Secure and Efficient Software-Defined Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Software-defined networking is a network architecture that centralizes control, enabling more flexible, programmable, and adaptive network management. Various traditional methods struggle to adapt to dynamic network topologies and varying traffic patterns. This paper presents an enhanced traffic obfuscation system for software-defined wireless sensor networks that integrates a Lévy flight–enhanced golf energy-aware traffic obfuscation mechanism to achieve secure and energy-efficient routing. The prominent aim of the proposed methodology is to enhance the network security by obfuscating traffic flows, making it more challenging for attackers to analyze and predict data transmission patterns. Simultaneously, the approach optimizes energy consumption to extend the operational lifetime of sensor networks, which are often constrained by limited power resources. The system implements six strategies: node deployment and SDN management, traffic obfuscation with dummy packets, dynamic topology adjustment for efficient routing, optimized data transmission, energy-aware adaptive routing, and continuous reconfiguration for security against evolving threat. Finally, the experimental findings revealed the effectiveness of the proposed system. In a network with 200 nodes, total energy consumption was reduced by 18%, while traffic obfuscation increased by 27%, leading to a 14% improvement in network lifetime. For a network with 300 nodes, energy consumption was reduced by 22%, and obfuscation improved by 25%, significantly enhancing network security and operational efficiency.