Network Layer Security Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

NETWORK LAYER SECURITY
PROTOCOLS IN WIRELESS
SENSOR NETWORKS
BY:
KOSURU HAVIESH
ID:1003519
INTRODUCTION
Wireless sensor network has an enormous attention due to its low cost and
tiny size where it can be embedded everywhere. It consists of hundreds or
thousands of sensor nodes distributed in a specific geographical area. These
nodes communicate together through wireless transceivers
Wireless sensor networks are widely used in different applications, such as
traffic management, battlefield, environment monitoring
ATTACKS IN NETWORK LAYER
Spoofed routing information & selective forwarding

Sinkhole
Sybil
Hello Flood
Ack. flooding
SPOOFED ROUTING INFORMATION
Definition: Attack against the routing information exchanged between nodes.

Actions: spoofing, altering, replaying routing information.
Consequences:
1. create routing loop, attract or repel traffic,
2. extend or shorten source routes,
3. generate false error messages,
4. partition the network
SELECTIVE FORWARDING
Def: Malicious nodes try to stop the propagation of certain messages.
Condition 1:Adversaries are on the path of a flow.
Actions:
a. Black hole, drop every packet.
b. refuse forwarding certain messages
c. drop certain messages
d. suppressing or modifying packets from a selected few other good nodes.
Features: Adversaries attempt to follow the path of least resistance and to
include itself on the actual data path flow
Condition 2:Adversaries overhear a flow.
Actions:
Jam or cause collision on each forwarded packet.
Consequences:
Suppress certain messages.
More tricky.
COUNTERMEASURES
Node has great chance to be on the flow, and close to source or base station
is most likely to launch
Multipath routing can be used to counter these types of selective forwarding
attacks.
Messages routed over n paths whose nodes are completely disjoint are
completely protected against selective forwarding.
Allowing nodes dynamically choose a packets next hop from a set of
possible candidates.
BLACKHOLE/SINKHOLE ATTACK
In this attack, a malicious node acts as a black hole to attract all the traffic in the
sensor network. Especially in a flooding based protocol,
the attacker listens to requests for routes then replies to the target nodes that it
contains the high quality or shortest path to the base station
Once the malicious device has been able to insert itself between the communicating
nodes (for example, sink and sensor node), it is able to do anything with the packets
passing between them.
In fact, this attack can affect even the nodes those are considerably far from the
base stations. Figure 2 shows the conceptual view of a blackhole/sinkhole attack
COUNTERMEASURES
These are very difficult to defend especially when used in combination.

Protocols that construct a topology initiated by a base station are the most
vulnerable
Geographic routing protocol can be one solution to defend these attacks
because topology in geographic protocol is constructed using localized
interaction.
SYBIL
Def: A single node forges multiple identities.

Geographic routing is very susceptible exchange of locality information. A set of
nodes instead of one.
Actions:
Having a set of faulty entities.
Overall Effects:
Reduces the efficiency of fault-tolerant schemes, such as distributed storage,
dispersity and multipath routing, topology maintenance, and etc.
COUNTERMEASURES
Every node shares a unique symmetric key with the base station
A pair of neighbor nodes use the resulting key to implement an authenticated,
encrypted link between them. (Pairwise Key)
Base station limit the number of neighbors a node is allowed to have prevent
an insider attacker establishing shared keys with every node in the network.
Not perfect
Malicious nodes can still communicating with its verified neighbors
wormhole attack by create an artificial link between two nodes to convince
them they are neighbors
HELLO FLOOD
Def: An attacker sends or replays a routing protocols HELLO packets with more
energy. Attacks on protocols that use HELLO packets to announce to neighbors.
These protocols assume that the sender of a received packet is within normal radio
range. Can be launched by insiders and outsiders.
Effects:
Attract a lot of nodes to use the forged high-quality routes.
Leave these nodes sufficiently far away form the attacker sending packets into
oblivion.
The network is at a state of confusion.
COUNTERMEASURES
Verify the bi directionality of the link between two nodes

Less effective if the adversary have highly sensitive receivers as well as
powerful transmitter.
Every node authenticate each of its neighbors with an identity verification
protocol using base station
The compromised node has to authenticate itself to a lot of nodes
Base station can detect the HELLO flood
ACK. FLOODING
Def: Spoofed link layer acknowledgement to trick other nodes to believe that
a link or node is either dead (actually alive) or alive (actually dead). Attacks
on protocols that relay on link layer acknowledgement.
Actions:
It Spoofs link layer ACK packets of neighbor nodes.
By the method of Selective forwarding by encouraging sender to send via
weak links.
Effects:
1.Convince the sender that a weak link is strong.
2.Convince the sender that a dead or disabled node is alive.
COUNTERMEASURES
Selecting a Base station which is trustworthy.
Adversaries must not be able to spoof broadcast or flooded messages from any base station.
HELLO message from neighbor nodes should be authenticated and impossible to spoof.
Attention:
public key cryptography and digital signatures can be used but it is beyond the capabilities
of sensor.
Replay is prevented because messages authenticated with previously disclosed keys are
ignored
SUMMARY
Attack Tiny OS Direct Geographic Min cost Cluster Rumor Energy
diffusion routing Forwarding based routing conserving
Spoofed routing Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Selective forwarding Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
sinkhole Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No
Sybil Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
Warm hole Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No
Hello floods Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes

CONCLUSION
Secure routing is vital to the acceptance and use of sensor networks for many
application. Link layer encryption and authentication mechanism may be
reasonable first approximation for defense.
THANK YOU

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NETWORK LAYER SECURITY

Spoofed routing information & selective forwarding

Definition: Attack against the routing information exchanged between nodes.

These are very difficult to defend especially when used in combination.

Def: A single node forges multiple identities.

Verify the bi directionality of the link between two nodes

Selective forwarding Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

sinkhole Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No

Sybil Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes

Warm hole Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No

Hello floods Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes

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