Sensor Network and Security

CSIE 103 F24991285

Wireless Sensor Network(WSN)

consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions The WSN is built of "nodes" from a few to several hundreds or even thousands, where each node is connected to one (or sometimes several) sensors

Applications of WSN
Area monitoring Environmental/Earth monitoring Industrial monitoring Agriculture monitoring Structural monitoring Passive localization and tracking

Area monitoring
In area monitoring, the WSN is deployed over a region where some phenomenon is to be monitored When the sensors detect the event being monitored (heat, pressure), the event is reported to one of the base stations, which then takes appropriate action (e.g., send a message on the Internet or to a satellite)

Characteristics of WSN
Power consumption constrains for nodes using batteries or energy harvesting Ability to cope with node failures Mobility of nodes Communication failures Heterogeneity of nodes Scalability to large scale of deployment Ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions

Characteristics of WSN
Sensor nodes can be imagined as small computers, extremely basic in terms of their interfaces and their components They usually consist of a processing unit with limited computational power and limited memory, sensors or MEMS, a communication device, and a power source usually in the form of a battery

Characteristics of WSN
The base stations are one or more components of the WSN with much more computational, energy and communication resources They act as a gateway between sensor nodes and the end user as they typically forward data from the WSN on to a server

Why need Security of WSN?

WSN are a most challenging and emerging technology for the research due to their vital scope in the field coupled with their low processing power and associated low energy WSN are broadly used in environmental control, surveillance tasks, monitoring, tracking and controlling Due to the above reasons, WSN need a secure communication

Wireless Sensor Networks Security

The traditional security mechanisms are authentication, symmetric key encryption & decryption and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) cryptography The major challenge is to deploy the above encryption techniques or their counterparts in a sensor network which is characterized with constrained memory, power supply and processing capability

Wireless Sensor Networks Security

Communication ProtocolsWSN use layered architecture like wired network architecture Characteristics and functions of their each layer is given below

Physical Layer
The objective of physical layer is to increase the reliability by reducing path loss effect and shadowing This layer is responsible for established connection, data rate, modulation, data encryption, signal detection, frequency generation

Data Link Layer

The objective of Data Link Layer is to insure interoperability amongst communication between nodes to nodes This layer is responsible for error detection, multiplexing, Prevention of Collision of packets, repeated transmission etc Some researchers proposed the possible use of public key cryptography, secure code distribution to create secure key

Network Layer
The objective of Network layer is to find best path for efficient routing mechanism This layer is responsible for routing the data from node to node, node to sink, node to base station, node to duster head..

Network Layer
WSN use ID based protocols and data centric protocols for routing mechanism In WSN, each node in the network acts as a router, so as to create secure routing protocol Encryption and decryption techniques are used for secure routing

Transport Layer
The objective of Transport Layer is to establish communication for external networks i.e. sensor network connected to the internet This is most challenging issue in wireless sensor networks

Application Layer
The objective of Application Layer is to present final output by ensuring smooth information flow to lower layers This layer is responsible for data collection, management and processing of the data through the application software for getting reliable results

Application Layer
SPINS (Security Protocols in sensor Networks) provides data authentication, replay protection, semantic security and low overhead SPIN has two secure building blocks SNEP and TESLA SNEP provides baseline security primitives :Data Confidentiality, two party data authentication and data broadcast for severely resource constrained environments

Wireless Sensor Networks Security

Four major categories the obstacles to sensor network security the requirements of a secure wireless sensor network attacks defensive measures

Obstacles of Sensor Security

A wireless sensor network is a special network which has many constraints compared to a traditional computer network Very Limited Resources Unreliable Communication Unattended Operation

Very Limited Resources

Limited Memory and Storage Space A sensor is a tiny device with only a small amount of memory and storage space for the code. In order to build an effective security mechanism, it is necessary to limit the code size of the security algorithm

Very Limited Resources Power Limitation

When adding security to a sensor node, we are interested in the impact that security has on the lifespan of a sensor (i.e., its battery life) The extra power consumed by sensor nodes due to security is related to the processing required for security functions (e.g., encryption, decryption, signing data, verifying signatures), the energy required to transmit the security related data or overhead (e.g., initialization vectors needed for encryption/decryption), and the energy required to store security parameters in a secure manner (e.g., cryptographic key storage)

Unreliable Communication
Unreliable Transfer
Packets may get damaged due to channel errors or dropped at highly congested nodes. The result is lost or missing packets. Furthermore, the unreliable wireless communication channel also results in damaged packets. Higher channel error rate also forces the software developer to devote resources to error handling. More importantly, if the protocol lacks the appropriate error handling it is possible to lose critical security packets

Unreliable Communication
Conflicts
Even if the channel is reliable, the communication may still be unreliable. This is due to the broadcast nature of the wireless sensor network If packets meet in the middle of transfer, conflicts will occur and the transfer itself will fail

Unreliable Communication
Latency
The multi-hop routing, network congestion, and node processing can lead to greater latency in the network, thus making it difficult to achieve synchronization among sensor nodes The synchronization issues can be critical to sensor security where the security mechanism relies on critical event reports and cryptographic key distribution

Unattended Operation

Exposure to Physical Attacks The sensor may be deployed in an environment open to adversaries, bad weather, and so on

Unattended Operation
Managed Remotely
Remote management of a sensor network makes it virtually impossible to detect physical tampering (i.e., through tamperproof seals) and physical maintenance issues (e.g., battery replacement)

Unattended Operation

No Central Management Point

A sensor network should be a distributed network without a central management point. This will increase the vitality of the sensor network

Security Requirements
It shares some commonalities with a typical computer network, but also poses unique requirements of its own Data Confidentiality Data Integrity Data Freshness Availability Self-Organization Time Synchronization Secure Localization Authentication

Attacks
Sensor networks are particularly vulnerable to several key types of attacks. Attacks can be performed in a variety of ways, most notably as denial of service attacks, but also through traffic analysis, privacy violation, physical attacks, and so on Background Types of Denial of Service attacks The Sybil attack Traffic Analysis Attacks Node Replication Attacks Attacks Against Privacy Physical Attacks

Defensive Measures
We start with key establishment in wireless sensor networks, which lays the foundation for the security in a wireless sensor network, followed by defending against DoS attacks, secure broadcasting and multicasting, defending against attacks on routing protocols etc

Defensive Measures
Key Establishment Defending Against DoS Attacks Secure Broadcasting and Multicasting Defending Against Attacks on Routing Protocols Detecting Node Replication Attacks Etc

Conclusions
As wireless sensor networks continue to grow and become more common, we expect that further expectations of security will be required of these wireless sensor network applications We also expect that the current and future work in privacy and trust will make wireless sensor networks a more attractive option in a variety of new arenas


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless _sensor_network http://www.mendeley.com/research/ survey-wireless-sensor-networksecurity/# http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~vipin/bo ok_Chapters/2007/2007_2.pdf