A comparative study of physical attacks on wireless sensor networks
0 likes40 views
This paper examines the vulnerabilities of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to various physical attacks, emphasizing the necessity for security due to their deployment in hostile environments and resource constraints. It categorizes attacks such as signal jamming and device tampering, outlines their effects, and discusses detection and defensive strategies to mitigate these threats. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the nature and implications of physical attacks on WSNs and to evaluate effective security mechanisms addressing confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
![IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology ISSN: 2319-1163
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Volume: 02 Issue: 01 | Jan-2013, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 72
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PHYSICAL ATTACKS ON WIRELESS
SENSOR NETWORKS
Rina Bhattacharya
Department of Computer Science, CMJ University, Shillong, Meghalaya, INDIA, rinikolkata@gmail.com
Abstract
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have many potential applications and challenges They consists of hundreds or thousands of low
power, low cost sensor nodes which have limited computing resources. WSNs are susceptible to many types of physical attacks due to
wireless and shared nature of communication channel, un-trusted transmissions, deployment in open environments, unattended nature
and limited resources. So security is a vital requirement for these networks. However wireless micro-sensor networks pose numerous
design challenges. This challenge is especially difficult due to the energy constrained nature of the devices. In this paper we focus a
wide variety of physical attacks and a comparison on them which enable s us to identify the purpose and capabilities of the attackers.
Also this paper discusses known approaches of security detection and defensive mechanisms against the physical attacks effectively.
Keywords- Communication channel, Open environment, Physical attacks, Sensor nodes, Wireless Sensor Networks,
------------------------------------------------------------------*****----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the idea of wireless sensor networks has
garnered a great deal of attention by researchers, including
those in the field of mobile computing and communications
[1,2]. WSN’s have many potential applications and unique
challenges. They usually are heterogeneous systems contain
many small devices, called sensor nodes, that monitoring
different environments in cooperative i.e, sensors cooperate
to each others and compose their local data to reach a global
view of the environments. In WSN’s there are two other
components, called “aggregation” and “base station’.
Aggregation points collect information from there nearby
sensors, integrate them and then forward to the base stations
to process gathered data [7,8,9]. Also WSN’s are vulnerable
to many types of attacks such as physical attacks, they are
one of the most malicious and harmful attacks on WSN’s.
due to unprotected and unsafe nature of the communication
channel, untrusted and broadcast transmission media,
deployment in hostile environments, automated nature and
limited resources, the most of security techniques of
traditional networks are impossible in WSN’s, therefore
security is a vital requirements for these networks
especially against the physical attacks. The objective of this
paper is to design an appropriate security mechanism for
these networks that should cover different security
dimensions of WSN’s include confidentiality, integrity,
availability and authenticity. The main purpose is presenting
an overview of different physical attacks on WSN’s and
comparing them together and also focus on their goals,
effects, possible detection and defensive mechanisms.
2. OVERVIEW OF WSN’S
A WSN is a heterogeneous system consisting of hundreds or
thousands low cost and low power tiny sensors to monitoring
and gathering information from deployment environment in
real time. Common functions of WSN’s are including
broadcast and multicast, routing, forwarding and route
maintenance. The sensors components are: sensor unit,
processing unit, storage/memory unit, power supply unit and
wireless radio transceiver, which are communicating each
other.
3. SECURITY IN WSN’S
Security attack is a concern for wireless sensor networks
because:
Usage of minimal capacity devices in parts of the
system.
Physical accessibility to sensor and actuator devices.
Wireless communication of the system devices.
In spite of these drawbacks or security attacks, WSN can still
function effectively. These security threats can be handled
using structured network security architecture, which includes
modifications to traditional security services such as
confidentiality, integrity and authenticity to the wireless
domain.
4. SECURITY ISSUES IN WSN’S
A. Availability
Ensure that the desired network services are available even
in the presence of denial of service attacks.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/acomparativestudyofphysicalattacksonwirelesssensornetworks-160729062814/85/A-comparative-study-of-physical-attacks-on-wireless-sensor-networks-1-320.jpg)
![IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology ISSN: 2319-1163
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Volume: 02 Issue: 01 | Jan-2013, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 74
Node capture Interruption,
interception,
modification,
fabrication
Availability,
integrity,
confidentiality,
authenticity
External
and active
Path-Based
DOS
Modification,
fabrication
Availability,
authenticity
External
and active
Node outage Modification Availability,
integrity
External
and active
Eavesdropping Interception Confidentiality External
and passive
DOS attacks Interruption,
interception,
modification,
fabrication
Availability,
integrity,
confidentiality,
authenticity
Active
7. DETECTION AND DEFENSIVE STRATEGIES
OF WSN’S PHYSICAL ATTACKS
In the following tablr a classification and comparison of
detection defensive techniques on WSN’s physical attacks is
presented.
Attacks/
criteria
Detection
methods
Defensive mechanisms
Signal/radi
o jamming
Statistical
information;
Channel utility
degradation than
a threshold;
Detecting
background noise;
Misbehavior
detection
techniques
Access restriction;
Encryption;
Error-correction;
Mode change;
Lower duty cycle;
Reporting attacks to base
Station;
Buffering;
Mapping protocol
Device
tampering
attack or
node
capture
attack(phy
sical layer)
or node
subversion
attack
(routing
layer) or
node
cloning
attack(appl
ication
layer)
Node
disconnection/
absence from the
network;
Regular
Monitoring;
Existence
interference in
functionality of
node; Node
destruction;
Using key
management
protocol;
Misbehavior
detection
techniques
Optimizing and using
crypto-processors or
physically secure processors;
Applying standard
precautions;
Hardware/software alerter;
Access restriction;
Physical protection;
Data integrity protection;
Data confidentiality
protection;
Malicious node detection
Techniques;
Local removing or exclude the
capture
CONCLUSIONS
Security is a vital requirement and complex feature to deploy
and extend WSN’s in different application domain. The most
security physical attacks are targeting WSN security
dimensions such as integrity, confidentiality, authenticity and
availability. In this paper, the different dimensions of WSN’s
security is analyzed and presented a wide variety of WSN’s
physical attacks and classify them. The approach is to classify
and compare the WSN’s physical attacks, their properties such
as threat model of WSN’s physical attacks nature, goals and
results, their strategies and effects and finally their associated
detection and defensive techniques against these attacks to
handle them independently and comprehensively.
REFERENCES
[1] K. Chris, W. David, “Secure Routing in Wireless
Sensor Networks: Attacks and Countermeasures”,
University of California, Berkeley.
[2] K. H. Kumar, A. Kar, “Wireless Sensor Network
Security Analysis”, Proceedings of International
Journal of Next-generation Networks, Vol. 1, No. 1,
December 2009, pp 1-9.
[3] P. Kumari, M. Kumar, R. Rishi, “Study of Security in
Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of
International Journal of Computer Science and
Technology, Vol.1, No. 5, pp 347-354.
[4] V.C. Manju, “Study of Security Issues in Wireless
Sensor Network”, Proceedings of International Journal
of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST), Vol.
3, No.10, October 2011, pp 7347-7351.
[5] N. Rajani, “Energy Efficient Reliable Routing Protocol
for Wireless Sensor Networks”, Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur, June 2008.
[6] K. Sharma, M.K. Ghosh, D. Kumar et al, “A
Comparative Study of Various Security Approaches
Used in Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of
International Journal of Advanced Science and
Technology”, Vol. 17, April 2010, pp 31-37.
[7] R. Sharma, Y. Chaba, Y. Singh, “Analysis of Security
Protocols in Wireless Sensor Network”, Proceedings of
International Journal of Advanced Networking and
Application, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2010, pp 707-713.
[8] E. Shih, H.S. Cho, N. Ickes, R. Min, A. Sinha, A.
Wang, A. Chandrakasan, “Physical Layer Driven
Protocol and Algorithms Design for Energy-Efficient
Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of
MOBICOM’01, July 2001, Rome, Italy.
[9] S. K. Singh, M. P. Singh, D.K. Singh, “Routing
Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks - A Survey”,
Proceedings of International Journal of Computer
Science & Engineering Survey (IJCSES), Vol.1, No. 2,
November 2010.
[10] S. Singh, H. K. Verma, “Security for Wireless Sensor
Network”, Proceedings of International Journal on
computer Science and Engineering (IJCSE), Vol. 3, No.
6, June 2011, pp 2393-2396.
[11] K. Ssu, C. Chou, H. C. Jiau, W.T. Hu, “Detection and
diagnosis of data inconsistency failures in Wireless
Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of Elsevier Journal of
Computer Networks, No. 50, 2006, pp 1247-1260.
[12] K. Sophia, “Security Models for Wireless Sensor
Networks”, Proceedings of, March 2006, pp 6-8.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/acomparativestudyofphysicalattacksonwirelesssensornetworks-160729062814/85/A-comparative-study-of-physical-attacks-on-wireless-sensor-networks-3-320.jpg)
A comparative study of physical attacks on wireless sensor networks
- 1. IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology ISSN: 2319-1163 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Volume: 02 Issue: 01 | Jan-2013, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 72 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PHYSICAL ATTACKS ON WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS Rina Bhattacharya Department of Computer Science, CMJ University, Shillong, Meghalaya, INDIA, rinikolkata@gmail.com Abstract Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have many potential applications and challenges They consists of hundreds or thousands of low power, low cost sensor nodes which have limited computing resources. WSNs are susceptible to many types of physical attacks due to wireless and shared nature of communication channel, un-trusted transmissions, deployment in open environments, unattended nature and limited resources. So security is a vital requirement for these networks. However wireless micro-sensor networks pose numerous design challenges. This challenge is especially difficult due to the energy constrained nature of the devices. In this paper we focus a wide variety of physical attacks and a comparison on them which enable s us to identify the purpose and capabilities of the attackers. Also this paper discusses known approaches of security detection and defensive mechanisms against the physical attacks effectively. Keywords- Communication channel, Open environment, Physical attacks, Sensor nodes, Wireless Sensor Networks, ------------------------------------------------------------------*****---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the idea of wireless sensor networks has garnered a great deal of attention by researchers, including those in the field of mobile computing and communications [1,2]. WSN’s have many potential applications and unique challenges. They usually are heterogeneous systems contain many small devices, called sensor nodes, that monitoring different environments in cooperative i.e, sensors cooperate to each others and compose their local data to reach a global view of the environments. In WSN’s there are two other components, called “aggregation” and “base station’. Aggregation points collect information from there nearby sensors, integrate them and then forward to the base stations to process gathered data [7,8,9]. Also WSN’s are vulnerable to many types of attacks such as physical attacks, they are one of the most malicious and harmful attacks on WSN’s. due to unprotected and unsafe nature of the communication channel, untrusted and broadcast transmission media, deployment in hostile environments, automated nature and limited resources, the most of security techniques of traditional networks are impossible in WSN’s, therefore security is a vital requirements for these networks especially against the physical attacks. The objective of this paper is to design an appropriate security mechanism for these networks that should cover different security dimensions of WSN’s include confidentiality, integrity, availability and authenticity. The main purpose is presenting an overview of different physical attacks on WSN’s and comparing them together and also focus on their goals, effects, possible detection and defensive mechanisms. 2. OVERVIEW OF WSN’S A WSN is a heterogeneous system consisting of hundreds or thousands low cost and low power tiny sensors to monitoring and gathering information from deployment environment in real time. Common functions of WSN’s are including broadcast and multicast, routing, forwarding and route maintenance. The sensors components are: sensor unit, processing unit, storage/memory unit, power supply unit and wireless radio transceiver, which are communicating each other. 3. SECURITY IN WSN’S Security attack is a concern for wireless sensor networks because: Usage of minimal capacity devices in parts of the system. Physical accessibility to sensor and actuator devices. Wireless communication of the system devices. In spite of these drawbacks or security attacks, WSN can still function effectively. These security threats can be handled using structured network security architecture, which includes modifications to traditional security services such as confidentiality, integrity and authenticity to the wireless domain. 4. SECURITY ISSUES IN WSN’S A. Availability Ensure that the desired network services are available even in the presence of denial of service attacks.
- 2. IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology ISSN: 2319-1163 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Volume: 02 Issue: 01 | Jan-2013, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 73 B. Confidentiality Confidentiality means restricting data access to authorized personnel. The data should not be leaked across adjacent sensor networks. For this purpose, the message is sent on the channel in encrypted form. C. Authenticity Authentication is important application in sensor networks. Adversary can easily inject messages, the receiver need to ensure that data used in any decision making process originate from trusted sources. Authentication allows sender node and receiver must be sure that they talking really to the node to which they want to communicate. D. Integrity Data integrity ensures that the receiver receives unaltered data in transit by any unauthorized personnel. E. Data f reshness Data freshness ensures that the recent data is available without any reply of old messages by unauthorized personnel. F. Robustness and Survivability Sensor network should be robust against the various attacks and if an attack succeeds, the impact should be minimized. G. Self-Organization Nodes should be flexible enough to be self-organizing and self-healing. H. Time Synchronization These protocols should not be manipulated to produce incorrect data. 5 DEFINITIONS, STRATEGIES AND EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL ATTACKS ON WSN’S WSN’s are designed in layered form; this layered architecture makes these networks susceptible and lead to damage against many kinds of attacks. The following table presents the physical attacks based on their strategies and effects. Attacks Attack definition Attack techniques Attack effects Signal/radio jamming The adversary tries to transit radio signals emitted by the sensors to the receiving antenna at the same transmitter. Constant jamming, deceptive jamming, random jamming, reactive jamming. Radio interference, resource exhaustion. Device tampering attack, node capturing attack Direct physical access, captured and replace nodes, Invasive attacks, non- invasive attacks, eavesdroppin g on wireless medium. Damage or modify physically stop/alter node’s services, take complete control over the captured node, software vulnerabilities. Path-Based DOS Typical combinationa l attacks include jamming attacks Sending a large number of packets to the base station Nodes battery exhaustion, network disruption, reducing WSN’s availability Node outage Stopping the functionality of WSN’s components. Physically, logical Stop nodes services, impossibility reading gathered information, launching a variety of other attacks. Eavesdropping Detecting the contents of communicati on by overhearing attempt to data Interception, abusing of wireless nature of WSN’s transmission medium Launching other attacks, extracting sensitive WSN information, delete the privacy protection and reducing data confidentiality DOS attacks A general attack includes several types of other attacks in different layer of WSN’s. reducing WSN’s availability. Physical layer, link layer, routing layer, transport layer, application layer attacks techniques. Effects of physical layer, link layer, routing layer, transport layer and application layer attacks. 6. PHYSICAL ATTACKS CLASSIFICATION BASED ON THREAT MODEL The physical attacks of WSN’s based on attacks nature and effects, attacker’s nature and capabilities, and WSN’s threat model are shown in the following table. Attacks Security Class Attack threat Threat model Signal/radio jamming Modification Availability, integrity External and active Device tampering Interception, modification, fabrication Availability, integrity, confidentiality, authenticity External and active
- 3. IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology ISSN: 2319-1163 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Volume: 02 Issue: 01 | Jan-2013, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 74 Node capture Interruption, interception, modification, fabrication Availability, integrity, confidentiality, authenticity External and active Path-Based DOS Modification, fabrication Availability, authenticity External and active Node outage Modification Availability, integrity External and active Eavesdropping Interception Confidentiality External and passive DOS attacks Interruption, interception, modification, fabrication Availability, integrity, confidentiality, authenticity Active 7. DETECTION AND DEFENSIVE STRATEGIES OF WSN’S PHYSICAL ATTACKS In the following tablr a classification and comparison of detection defensive techniques on WSN’s physical attacks is presented. Attacks/ criteria Detection methods Defensive mechanisms Signal/radi o jamming Statistical information; Channel utility degradation than a threshold; Detecting background noise; Misbehavior detection techniques Access restriction; Encryption; Error-correction; Mode change; Lower duty cycle; Reporting attacks to base Station; Buffering; Mapping protocol Device tampering attack or node capture attack(phy sical layer) or node subversion attack (routing layer) or node cloning attack(appl ication layer) Node disconnection/ absence from the network; Regular Monitoring; Existence interference in functionality of node; Node destruction; Using key management protocol; Misbehavior detection techniques Optimizing and using crypto-processors or physically secure processors; Applying standard precautions; Hardware/software alerter; Access restriction; Physical protection; Data integrity protection; Data confidentiality protection; Malicious node detection Techniques; Local removing or exclude the capture CONCLUSIONS Security is a vital requirement and complex feature to deploy and extend WSN’s in different application domain. The most security physical attacks are targeting WSN security dimensions such as integrity, confidentiality, authenticity and availability. In this paper, the different dimensions of WSN’s security is analyzed and presented a wide variety of WSN’s physical attacks and classify them. The approach is to classify and compare the WSN’s physical attacks, their properties such as threat model of WSN’s physical attacks nature, goals and results, their strategies and effects and finally their associated detection and defensive techniques against these attacks to handle them independently and comprehensively. REFERENCES [1] K. Chris, W. David, “Secure Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks: Attacks and Countermeasures”, University of California, Berkeley. [2] K. H. Kumar, A. Kar, “Wireless Sensor Network Security Analysis”, Proceedings of International Journal of Next-generation Networks, Vol. 1, No. 1, December 2009, pp 1-9. [3] P. Kumari, M. Kumar, R. Rishi, “Study of Security in Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of International Journal of Computer Science and Technology, Vol.1, No. 5, pp 347-354. [4] V.C. Manju, “Study of Security Issues in Wireless Sensor Network”, Proceedings of International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST), Vol. 3, No.10, October 2011, pp 7347-7351. [5] N. Rajani, “Energy Efficient Reliable Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks”, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, June 2008. [6] K. Sharma, M.K. Ghosh, D. Kumar et al, “A Comparative Study of Various Security Approaches Used in Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology”, Vol. 17, April 2010, pp 31-37. [7] R. Sharma, Y. Chaba, Y. Singh, “Analysis of Security Protocols in Wireless Sensor Network”, Proceedings of International Journal of Advanced Networking and Application, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2010, pp 707-713. [8] E. Shih, H.S. Cho, N. Ickes, R. Min, A. Sinha, A. Wang, A. Chandrakasan, “Physical Layer Driven Protocol and Algorithms Design for Energy-Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of MOBICOM’01, July 2001, Rome, Italy. [9] S. K. Singh, M. P. Singh, D.K. Singh, “Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks - A Survey”, Proceedings of International Journal of Computer Science & Engineering Survey (IJCSES), Vol.1, No. 2, November 2010. [10] S. Singh, H. K. Verma, “Security for Wireless Sensor Network”, Proceedings of International Journal on computer Science and Engineering (IJCSE), Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2011, pp 2393-2396. [11] K. Ssu, C. Chou, H. C. Jiau, W.T. Hu, “Detection and diagnosis of data inconsistency failures in Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of Elsevier Journal of Computer Networks, No. 50, 2006, pp 1247-1260. [12] K. Sophia, “Security Models for Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of, March 2006, pp 6-8.