Reduce Effect of Dependent Malicious Sensor Nodes in WSNs using Pairs Counting and Fake Packets

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new technique for the enhancement of target detection in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in which sensor nodes are responsible for taking binary decisions about the presence or absence of a given target and reporting the output to the fusion center. We introduce the algorithm; Fail Silent Pair (FSP) to calculate global decision in the fusion center. The FSP algorithm randomly distributes all sensor nodes into pairs then considers pairs of the same local decision. Also, we present new detection and prevention methods to reduce the effect of dependent malicious sensor nodes. The detection method is based on the deception of suspicious sensor nodes with fake packets to detect a subset of the malicious sensor nodes, as these nodes eavesdrop on other sensor nodes packets to use their local decisions as a reference to build an intelligent decision. While the prevention method allows the fusion center to correct local decisions of some malicious sensor nodes with identified strategies, assisting in the increase of the accuracy of global decisions. We introduce a mathematical analysis to verify our methods, in addition to simulation experiments to validate our technique.