CPMTS: Catching packet modifiers with trust support in wireless sensor networks

Security in wireless sensor networks is critical due to its way of open communication. Packet modification is a common attack in wireless sensor networks. In literature, many schemes have been proposed to mitigate such an attack but very few detect the malicious nodes effectively. In the proposed approach, each node chooses the parent node for forwarding the packet towards sink. Each node adds its identity and trust on parent as a routing path marker and encrypts only the bytes added by node in packet before forwarding to parent. Sink can determine the modifiers based on trust value and node identities marked in packet. Child node observes the parent and decides the trust on parent based on successful and unsuccessful transactions. Data transmission is divided into multiple rounds of equal time duration. Each node chooses the parent node at the beginning of a round based on its own observation on parent. Simulated the algorithm in NS-3 and performance analysis is discussed. With the combination of trust factor and fixed path routing to detect malicious activity, analytical results show that proposed method detect modifiers efficiently and early, and also with low percentage of false detection.

I. Introduction

A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of spatially distributed autonomous devices having sensing, computing and communication capabilities. Sensor nodes cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, pressure, sound, vibration, motion or pollutants. Wireless sensor networks are used in environmental conditions where information is difficult to access. Sensor node, also known as a ’mote’, is a node in a wireless sensor network that is capable of performing some processing, gathering sensory information and communicating with other connected nodes in the network. Sensor network transmits the data from one node to another node in an adhoc way and finally to a base station where the data is stored, processed and displayed.