Improved Model for the Stability Analysis of Wireless Sensor Network Against Malware Attacks

Abstract

Ensuring security in a communication network is one of the underlying challenges of wireless sensor network due to critical operational constraints. Wireless sensor network (WSN) is an easy target of malware (worm, virus, malicious code, etc.) attacks due to weak security mechanism. Malware propagation outsets from a compromised sensor node and spreads in the whole WSN using wireless communication. Owing to epidemic nature of worm transmission in the network, it is essential to implement a defence mechanism against worm attacks. Motivated by malware quarantine, we propose an improved mathematical model which aggregates quarantine and vaccination techniques. We obtain the equilibrium points and other crucial parameters of the proposed model. We analyse the system stability under different conditions. Basic reproduction number determines whether malware is extinct in the system or not. It helps in the calculation of cutoff limit of the node density and communication radius. The impingement of various parameters in this model is analysed. The performance is observed to be significantly ameliorated than existing models and verified by extensive simulation results in terms of reducing the number of infectious nodes and decreasing the rate of malware propagation.