Randomized Multipath Routing for Overwhelming Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions. Providing end-to-end data security in wireless sensor network (WSN) is a non-trivial task. In addition to the large number and severe resource constraint of sensor nodes, a particular challenge comes from potential insider attacks due to possible node compromise, since a WSN is usually deployed in unattended/hostile environments. Compromised node and denial of service are two key attacks in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Here, we study the data delivery mechanisms to overcome these attacks with high probability of circumventing black holes. Classic multipath routing approaches are vulnerable to such attacks, mainly due to their deterministic nature. Once the adversary acquires the routing algorithm, it can compute the same routes known to the source and make all information sent over these routes vulnerable to its attacks. In this paper, we develop mechanisms that generate randomized multipath routes. Under our designs, the routes taken by the “shares” of different packets change over time. So even if the routing algorithm becomes known to the adversary, the adversary still cannot pinpoint the routes traversed by each packet. Besides randomness, the generated routes are also highly dispersive and energy efficient, making them quite capable of circumventing black holes.