LOGO
Security Issues in Wireless Sensor
Networks (WSNs)
Shayan Zamani & Mojtaba Jafari
Mazanadaran University of Science and Technology,
Distributed Systems Class Seminar,
Supervisor: Hadi Salimi
{Sh.zamani and jafari}@ustmb.ac.ir
Outline
1
Security Challenges
2
Security Principles
3
WSN Attacks
4
Conclusion
2
Security in WSN
Security Challenges
 The broadcast nature of the wireless communication.
 The network deployment in hostile environments (e.g. battlefield, forest) with
relatively poor physical protection.
 The limitations in energy, computational power and memory.
 The extremely large number of interacting devices in a sensor network.
 The dynamic nature of WSN (frequent changes in both its topology and its
membership)
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Security in WSN
Security Principles
 Data Confidentiality: Ensuring that only authorized sensor nodes can access
the content of the messages.
 Data Authentication: Ensuring that the data is originated from the correct
source.
 Data Integrity: Ensuring that any received data has not been altered in transmit
by unauthorized parties.
 Data Freshness: Ensuring that no old messages have been replayed.
 Availability: Ensuring that services offered by whole WSN or by a single sensor
node must be available whenever required.
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Security in WSN
Type of Attacks
 From the point of view of how to Attack:
 Passive: Only monitors the communication channel. Threatens the confidentiality of data.
 Active: Attempts to delete, add or alter the transmission on the channel. Threatens data integrity,
authentication and confidentiality.
 From the point of view of Attacker’s Device:
 Mote-Class Attacker: Has access to a few nodes with similar capabilities to those deployed in the
network.
 Laptop-Class Attacker: Has access to more powerful devices like a laptop. Has advantages over
legitimate nodes like greater battery power, more capable cpu and high-power antenna.
 From the point of view of penetration to Network:
 Insider: Has compromised some authorized nodes of the network (stolen key material, run
malicious code).
 Outsider: Has no special access to the network.
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Security in WSN
Attacks in WSN(1/6)
Network
Network Layer
Layer
Attacks
Attacks
Physical
Physical
Jamming, Tampering
Link
Link
Collision,
Exhaustion, Unfairness
Unfairness
Collision, Exhaustion,
Network
Network and
andRouting
Routing
Spoofed,
forwarding,
Spoofed, Selective forwarding,
Sinkhole,
Sybil, Wormholes,
Wormholes, Hello
Sinkhole, Sybil,
Hello
flood
flood
Transport
Transport
Flooding,
Flooding, Desynchronization
Desynchronization
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Security in WSN
Attacks in WSN(2/6)
 Physical Layer
• Jamming: Interference with the radio frequencies a network's nodes are
using.
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Security in WSN
Attacks in WSN(3/6)
 Data Link Layer
• Collision: Altering of transmission octets to disrupt the packets.
(checksum mismatch)
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Security in WSN
Attacks in WSN(4/6)
 Network Layer
• Sinkhole: The adversary attracts the surrounding nodes with unfaithful
routing information.
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Security in WSN
Attacks in WSN(5/6)
 Network Layer
• Wormhole: The adversary tunnels the traffic received in a part of the
network to another.
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Security in WSN
Attacks in WSN(6/6)
 Network Layer
• Sybil attack: A single node presents multiple identities to other nodes.
A
Identity Table:
Identity Table:
Current =
Current
Current
Current
Current
==X,A,C,B
=X,A,C
=X,A
X
X,A,C,B,D
F
M
B
C
D
E
N
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Security in WSN
Conclusion
 Need for physical network protection (not always possible).
 Cryptography can provide link layer encryption and authentication
mechanisms (MAC) but this is not enough.
 End to end security mechanisms are impractical.
 Careful protocol design (routing, localization, data aggregation) with
respect to security principles and attacker models.
 Consideration of energy issues when adapting countermeasures.
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Security in WSN
References(1/4)
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Press.
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(IPTPS’02), Mar. 2002.
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defense strategies,” IEEE Network, vol. 20, no. 3, 2006.
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Security in WSN
References(2/4)
9. J. Deng, R. Han, and S. Mishra, “Defending against path-based DoS attacks in
wireless sensor networks,” in SASN ’05: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Workshop on
Security of Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks, 2005.
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False-Endorsement-Based DoS Attacks in WSNs”, in IEEE International Conference
on Wireless & Mobile Computing, Networking & Communication, 2008
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Computer Networks, June 2006.
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IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS”, 2ND QUARTER 2006, VOLUME 8, NO. 2
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Survey”, Journal of Information Assurance and Security 5 (2010) 031-044, 2009
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Survey ”, Auerbach Publications, CRC Press, 2006
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Wireless Sensor Networks”, 2006
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Security in WSN
References(3/4)
17. A. D. Wood and J. A. Stankovic, “Denial of service in sensor networks,” IEEE
Computer, vol. 35, no. 10, pp. 54–62, 2002.
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20. J. Newsome, E. Shi, D. Song, A.Perrig, “The Sybil Attack in Sensor Networks:
Analysis & Defenses”, Center for Computer and Communications Security, 2004
21. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_distribution_in_wireless_sensor_networks, Last
access 25/5/2010
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Networks using Connectivity Information" , To appear in IEEE INFOCOM 2007,
Alaska
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Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2004.
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Security in WSN
References(4/4)
25. I.Krontiris,Th.Giannetsos,T.Dimitriou, "Launching a Sinkhole Attack in Wireless
Sensor Networks; the Intruder Side", Athens Information Technology, Peania,
Athens,Greece.
26. Ch.Tumrongwittayapak, R.Varakulsiripunth, "Detecting Sinkhole Attacks In Wireless
Sensor Networks" ,ICROS-SICE International Conference, Aug 2009, Japan.
27. Some Slides Taken from Presentation of Pyrgelis Apostolos, “Cryptography and
Security in Wireless Sensor Networks”, Department of Computer Engineering and
Informatics University of Patras, 2009, Greece.
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Security in WSN