Abstract
WSANs (Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks) are derived from traditional wireless sensor networks by introducing mobile actuator elements. Previous studies indicated that mobile actuators can improve network performance in terms of data collection, energy supplementation, etc. However, according to our experimental simulations, the actuator’s mobility also causes the sensor worm to spread faster if an attacker launches worm attacks on an actuator and compromises it successfully. Traditional worm propagation models and defense strategies did not consider the diffusion with a mobile worm carrier. To address this new problem, we first propose a microscopic mathematical model to describe the propagation dynamics of the sensor worm. Then, a two-step local defending strategy (LDS) with a mobile patcher (a mobile element which can distribute patches) is designed to recover the network. In LDS, all recovering operations are only taken in a restricted region to minimize the cost. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our model estimations are rather accurate and consistent with the actual spreading scenario of the mobile sensor worm. Moreover, on average, the LDS outperforms other algorithms by approximately 50% in terms of the cost.
Highlights
Wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) have a broad range of applications, such as environmental monitoring [1], military surveillance [2,3], object tracking [4,5], etc
With the aid of the authentication mechanism and these hypotheses of the mobile element, the proposed local defending strategy (LDS) solution with a mobile patcher can work in WSANs
Simulation results were presented in order to validate the performance of our proposed mathematical model and defending strategy for the mobile sensor worm
Summary
Wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) have a broad range of applications, such as environmental monitoring [1], military surveillance [2,3], object tracking [4,5], etc. Sensors are employed in unattended environments and equipped with simple hardware architecture, low memory, and computational resources These limitations caused by the wireless nature and decentralized architecture of signal communication make security provisioning difficult; as a result, the ability of sensors to defend against the worm attack cannot meet our expectations. Previous studies have indicated that the sensor worm attacks have become one of the major threats to WSN applications [10] This is even worse in WSANs, where the actuator elements have the potential to be mobile worm carriers and assist in diffusing worm copies. We propose modeling the propagation dynamic of a mobile sensor worm by several iterative equations of individual security states from the microscopic point of view.
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