Security attacks and countermeasures in Surveillance Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Surveillance has always been an important task for human beings either for protecting a precious asset or gathering information from the surrounding environment. However, things to be monitored are increasing with a huge rate due to the changing requirements day by day. As a result, it becomes nearly impossible for individuals to do this task manually. To be able to fulfill such requirements, Surveillance Wireless Sensor Networks (SWSNs) have emerged. An SWSN is comprised of tiny nodes geared with various sensor types from a few of them to hundreds or even thousands, where each node is connected to several surrounding nodes. Most SWSNs operate by sensing at the node-level and conveying the sensed data to the sink (base station) for decision making processes such as object classification, localization, or event detection. In this respect, secure transmission of the sensed data is crucial since decision making is performed according to the received data. In this study, we primarily discuss the security attacks and defense mechanisms in surveillance wireless sensor networks. Moreover, security requirements of SWSNs, how accuracy and efficiency aspects of SWNSs are affected from each attack type, and evaluation criteria of defense mechanisms are presented in detail.