Intruder Attacks on Wireless Sensor Networks: A Soft Decision and Prevention Mechanism

Abstract

Because of the wide-ranging of applications in a variety of fields, such as medicine, environmental studies, robotics, warfare and security, and so forth, the research on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has attracted much attention recently. WSNs offer economical, flexible, scalable and pragmatic solutions in many situations. Sensor nodes are tiny and have a limited, non-rechargeable battery source, small memory/computational abilities and low transmitter power. Energy resources are vital as once the battery is depleted, the node is no longer usable. Multiple medium access control (MAC) protocols are designed to increase the life cycle of a node by minimizing its unnecessary energy consumption. In some critical applications like the surveillance of enemy movements on a battlefield, opponents deploy adversary nodes to disturb the performance of WSNs by mainly depleting the battery sources of legitimate nodes. In this work, an intrusion detection mechanism has been adapted to detect different kinds of intruders’ attacks in MAC protocols of WSN’s. A soft decision mechanism has been implemented to detect collision and exhaus-tion attacks. A preventative mechanism has also been introduced, which helps a node to avoid these intrusive attacks. Results show how the lifetime of a node increases and network performance also increases with better throughput and reduced delay.