How Trust and Reputation-Based Collaboration Impact Wireless Sensor Network Security

Abstract

Like wired network security, wireless sensor network (WSN) security encompasses the typical network security requirements which are: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, non-repudiation and availability. At the same time, security for WSNs differs from traditional security designed for classical wired networks in many points because of the new constraints imposed by WSN technology. Many aspects are due to the limited resources (memory space, CPU …) and infrastructure-less property of WSNs. Therefore traditional security mechanisms cannot be applied directly and WSNs are more prone to existing and new threats than traditional networks. Typical threats are the physical capture of sensor nodes, the service disruption due to the unreliable wireless communication. Parameters specific to WSN characteristics may help to reduce the effect of threats. Examples of existing measures are efficient WSN power management strategies that can dynamically adjust the node cycles (sleeping or awake mode) based on the current network workload or the use of redundant information to locally detect lying nodes. In addition to adjusting existing WSN characteristics that impact security, establishing trust and collaboration is essential in WSNs for many reasons such as the high distribution of sensor nodes or the goal-oriented nature of many sensing applications. This chapter emphasizes the need of collaboration between sensor nodes and shows that establishing trust between nodes and using reputation reported by collaborating nodes can help mitigate security issues.