Time synchronisation attacks and defences in IEEE802.15.4e networks

Abstract

Time synchronisation is very crucial in many wireless sensor network applications especially in industrial wireless networks. The current industrial wireless standards all use TDMA-based channel-sharing protocols on the medium access control (MAC) layer. If an adversary launches time synchronisation attacks to the industrial wireless networks, the whole networks communication will be paralysed. However, the time synchronisation is insufficient to be protected in the current industrial wireless standards which based on IEEE802.15.4e standard. So it is important to study in depth the time synchronisation method of attack and defense in IEEE802.15.4e networks. In this paper we give a survey of time synchronisation in IEEE802.15.4e networks and point out the possible attacks. They include ASN attack, message manipulation attack, node identity attack and pulse-delay attack. Then we propose some countermeasures against these attacks. Finally, we perform a series of experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of corresponding defences for the attacks. The experiment results show that the proposed mechanisms can successfully defend against these attacks. And the energy consumption of these defense methods are very low.