Sinkhole Vulnerabilities in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Sinkhole attacks in wireless sensor networks occur when a compromised node tries to attract network traffic by advertising un-authorized/illegitimate routing updates. The victim node sends data to the compromised node rather than sending it to the node it was formerly using. Sinkhole attacks are typically used to launch other attacks on the network such as selective forwarding and wormhole attacks. Once the network is compromised it is very hard to predict the kind of attack that is to follow. For this reason, there is a need to strengthen the security of wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we first describe the challenges in detecting sinkhole attacks in wireless sensor networks, followed by an analysis of methods to prevent, detect and neutralize sinkhole attacks. The analysis will be based on discussing the advantages and limitations of the proposed solutions.