Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) consists of large number of low-cost, resource-constrained sensor nodes. The constraints of the WSN which make it to be vulnerable to attacks are based on their characteristics which include: low memory, low computation power, they are deployed in hostile area and left unattended, small range of communication capability and low energy capabilities. Examples of attacks which can occur in a WSN are sinkhole attack, selective forwarding attack and wormhole attack. One of the impacts of these attacks is that, one attack can be used to launch other attacks. This book chapter presents an exploration of the analysis of the existing solutions which are used to detect and identify passive and active attack in WSN. The analysis is based on advantages and limitations of the proposed solutions.