A survey of Sybil attack countermeasures in IoT-based wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been among the most prevalent wireless innovations over the years exciting new Internet of Things (IoT) applications. IoT based WSN integrated with Internet Protocol IP allows any physical objects with sensors to be connected ubiquitously and send real-time data to the server connected to the Internet gate. Security in WSN remains an ongoing research trend that falls under the IoT paradigm. A WSN node deployed in a hostile environment is likely to open security attacks such as Sybil attack due to its distributed architecture and network contention implemented in the routing protocol. In a Sybil attack, an adversary illegally advertises several false identities or a single identity that may occur at several locations called Sybil nodes. Therefore, in this paper, we give a survey of the most up-to-date assured methods to defend from the Sybil attack. The Sybil attack countermeasures includes encryption, trust, received signal indicator (RSSI), encryption and artificial intelligence. Specifically, we survey different methods, along with their advantages and disadvantages, to mitigate the Sybil attack. We discussed the lesson learned and the future avenues of study and open issues in WSN security analysis.