Location Privacy Protection and Coverage Hole Effects in Event Monitoring Wireless Networks for Internet of Things Applications

Source-location privacy (SLP) protection improves security in event monitoring wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. However, due to constrained energy resources, WSNs incur coverage holes that affect the level of SLP protection. Existing studies have ineffectively analysed the effects of coverage holes on SLP protection. Noting the limitation, this study investigated the coverage hole effects. Performance of various SLP routing protocols was evaluated based on the sensor node utilization ratio, attack success rate, end-to-end delay, and packet delivery ratio. Then, considering the challenge of limited battery power in IoT sensors, the performance gains and limitations of the protocols were identified. Simulation results demonstrate that the data dissemination SLP routing protocol (DIRP) outperforms other protocols. However, the performance of DIRP is significantly affected by coverage holes. The results suggest that for DIRP to be viable in IoT applications, the integration of distributed energy resources should be considered.