A Review of Intrusion Detection in 802.15.4-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

The widespread deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in diverse types of applications motivated the development of strong security measures to protect these networks. The main challenge against deploying strong security algorithms is that WSNs suffer from major constraints in terms of power and computing resources. WSNs impose a primary condition on the design stage that requires any protocol or algorithm to be power-efficient. This means that strong cryptography techniques cannot be used and we need another layer of defence to protect the WSN. This makes intrusion detection systems (IDSs) an essential option in these networks. IDSs can capture malicious misbehaviour that manages to penetrate the first layer of defence (i.e., cryptography and authentication). In this paper we highlight the challenges encountered while designing an efficient intrusion detection framework in WSNs, and provide a review of important contributions in this area. Finally, we propose a new approach that aids in detecting and confining intrusive behaviour in the network.