DPDSN: Detection of packet-dropping attacks for wireless sensor networks

Denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can deplete network resources and energy without much effort on the part of an adversary. Packetdropping attacks are one category of DoS attacks. Lightweight solutions to detect such attacks on WSNs are needed. Current techniques for detecting such attacks in ad hoc networks need to monitor every node in the network. Once they detect malicious nodes that drop packets, a new path has to be found that does not include them. In this paper, we propose a lightweight solution called DPDSN. It identifies paths that drop packets by using alternate paths that WSN finds earlier during route discovery. Responding to a packet-dropping attack incurs no additional cost because one of the alternate paths is utilized for all subsequent communication. DPDSN does not require monitoring individual nodes, making it feasible for WSNs. We formulate the probability of success and failure of DPDSN in the presence of malicious nodes that drop packets. We compare our approach with existing techniques. Our analysis found that the overhead of DPDSN is at most ) ( N Ο for a two-dimensional grid network of N nodes. Our simulations show that the overhead of DPDSN for a WSN with 100 nodes is less than 3% of energy consumed on route discovery when using DSR or Directed Diffusion routing protocols. KeywordsDenial-of-service, intrusion detection, wireless sensor networks.