Adaptive and Channel-Aware Detection of Selective Forwarding Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

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Adaptive and Channel-Aware Detection of Selective Forwarding Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Adaptive and Channel-Aware Detection of Selective Forwarding Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Adaptive and Channel-Aware Detection of Selective Forwarding Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are vulnerable to selective forwarding attacks that can maliciously drop a sub-set of forwarding packets to degrade network performance and jeopardize information integrity.

Meanwhile, the rate of packet loss during the communication of sensor nodes may be high and vary from time to time due to the unstable wireless channel in WSNs. Distinguishing the malicious drop and normal packet loss is a great challenge.

In this paper, to detect selective forwarding attacks in WSNs, we propose a channel-aware reputation system with adaptive detection threshold (CRS-A). The CRS-A evaluates the data forwarding behaviors of sensor nodes based on the deviation of the monitored packet loss and the estimated normal loss.

In order to optimize the detection accuracy of CRS-A, we theoretically derive the optimal threshold for forwarding evaluation, which is adaptive to the time-varied channel condition and the estimated attack probabilities of compromised nodes.

In addition, an attack-tolerant data forwarding scheme is developed to collaborate with CRS-A to stimulate the forwarding cooperation of compromised nodes and improve the network’s data delivery ratio.

Conclusion

In this paper, we proposed a channel-aware reputation system with an adaptive detection threshold (CRS-A) to detect selective forwarding attacks in WSNs.In order to improve the detection accuracy of CRS-A, we have further derived the optimal evaluation threshold of CRS-A in a probabilistic manner, which is adaptive to the time-varied channel condition and the attack probabilities of compromised nodes. Our simulation results show that the proposed CRS-A can achieve a high detection accuracy with low false and missed detection probabilities, and the proposed attack-tolerant data forwarding scheme can improve the network’s data delivery ratio by more than 10 percent.