A Hybrid Secure Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks against Timing Attacks Using Continuous-Time Markov Chain and Queueing Model.

Tianhui Meng,Xiaofan Li,Sha Zhang,Yubin Zhao

doi:10.3390/s16101606

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently gained popularity for a wide spectrum of applications. Monitoring tasks can be performed in various environments. This may be beneficial in many scenarios, but it certainly exhibits new challenges in terms of security due to increased data transmission over the wireless channel with potentially unknown threats. Among possible security issues are timing attacks, which are not prevented by traditional cryptographic security. Moreover, the limited energy and memory resources prohibit the use of complex security mechanisms in such systems. Therefore, balancing between security and the associated energy consumption becomes a crucial challenge. This paper proposes a secure scheme for WSNs while maintaining the requirement of the security-performance tradeoff. In order to proceed to a quantitative treatment of this problem, a hybrid continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) and queueing model are put forward, and the tradeoff analysis of the security and performance attributes is carried out. By extending and transforming this model, the mean time to security attributes failure is evaluated. Through tradeoff analysis, we show that our scheme can enhance the security of WSNs, and the optimal rekeying rate of the performance and security tradeoff can be obtained.

Highlights

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which are enabled by the developments of wireless communications, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology and digital electronics, have found their way into a wide variety of applications and systems with vastly varying requirements and characteristics
In order to proceed to a quantitative treatment of the performance-security tradeoff of WSNs, we propose a hybrid continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) and queueing model for the system under the specific threat of timing attacks
We evaluate our secure scheme for WSNs against timing attacks

Summary

Introduction

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which are enabled by the developments of wireless communications, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology and digital electronics, have found their way into a wide variety of applications and systems with vastly varying requirements and characteristics. Considerable amounts of research efforts have enabled the actual implementation and deployment of sensor networks tailored to the unique requirements of certain sensing and monitoring applications [3,4,5]. Since these networks are usually deployed in remote areas and left unattended, they should be defended by security mechanisms against attacks, such as physical tampering, node capture, Sensors 2016, 16, 1606; doi:10.3390/s16101606 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors. The confidentiality of propagated data can be considered critical

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