Secure reputation monitoring system - a novel connected dominating set-based framework for WSNs

Reputation and Trust-based Monitoring Systems (RTMSs) have provided a ubiquitous framework for secure Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) computing. However, neighborhood monitoring, though useful, consumes substantial amounts of sensor resources. Therefore, employing sensors for neighborhood monitoring, which is secondary to their intended duties, depletes valuable and scarce resources. This eventually leads to shortened network lifetime, which is counter-productive in WSNs. In this paper, we propose a novel, Connected Dominating Set (CDS)-based reputation monitoring system. Our model is the first attempt to employ a CDS-based monitoring backbone to securely aggregate the reputation of sensors without subjecting them to energy depletion or reputation pollution attacks encountered in existing reputation monitoring systems. Secure and certificateless node mobility and robustness to node replication and ID spoofing attacks are two vital by-products of our model. We confirm the performance of our model via simulation studies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.