On simulative analysis of attack impact in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are frequently adopted in industrial applications. However, they are particularly prone to cyber-physical attacks. Since addressing all possible attacks is not viable, due to performance and economic reasons, it is vital to choose which attacks to address and which countermeasures to adopt. Hence, a quantitative analysis of attack impact is crucial to make an effective choice. In this paper, we present a simulative approach to attack impact analysis, and show that simulation results provide valuable insights on the attack severity. To fix ideas, we refer to a WSN monitoring pollutant emissions of a critical infrastructure. We analyze effects of cyber-physical attacks against the network, and rank them according to their impact severity. This supports designers in deciding which attacks to address and which countermeasures to select.