Secure and Intrusion Tolerant Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), also known as sensor webs, constitute a rapidly emerging area of research. In a wireless sensor network, a distributed collection of sensor nodes forms a network interconnected by wireless communication links. Each sensor node acts as an information source, sensing and collecting data samples from its environment. Sensor nodes perform routing functions, creating a multi-hop wireless networking fabric that conveys data samples to other sensor nodes and to external destinations. In addition, sensor nodes can act as information sinks, receiving dynamic configuration information through the networking fabric from external entities or other sensor nodes.

It has become clear in the recent days that WSNs have the potential to revolutionize the entire process of information gathering and processing over the next decade. However, security, intrusion tolerance, and high availability are critical issues that must be addressed before this potential can be realized. Our goal is build secure and highly available WSNs that continue to operate correctly in a hostile computing environemnt, even if the security of some of the nodes has been compromised. There are four subareas we are addressing with in this project. First, we have designed, implemented, and experimented with a protocol called INSENS (INtrusion-tolerant routing protocol for wireless SEnsor NetworkS). INSENS provides support for discovering the topology of a wireless sensor network and building secure routing mechanisms in the presence of passive and active security attacks and compromised sensor nodes.

Second, we have extended our work on INSENS to secure wireless sensor networks against denial-of-service attacks on base stations, search and destroy attacks against base stations, and tolerate base station failures. Third, we have addressed the issue of scalability in building a large wireless sensor network comprised of tens of thousands of sensor nodes. In particular, we have proposed a novel technique to distribute trust in building a hierarchical wireless sensor network, and provided support for secure, in-network data processing. Finally, we have proposed a novel technique to address a replay-style, denial-of-service attack in secure and reliable end-to-end communication in wireless sensor networks. This technique is based on one-way hash chains, and can potentially be used in the design of the next-generation, secure network protocols and algorithms.

This project is a collaboration between Prof. Rick Han and myself.

Publications

Copyright © 2003 Shivakant Mishra