Title: Weighted trust evaluation-based malicious node detection for wireless sensor networks

Authors: Hongbing Hu, Yu Chen, Wei-Shinn Ku, Zhou Su, Chung-Han J. Chen

Addresses: State University of New York – Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA. ' State University of New York – Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA. ' Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. ' Waseda University, Ohkubo 3-4-1, Shinjyuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan. ' Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL 36088, USA

Abstract: Deployed in a hostile environment, the individual Sensor Node (SN) of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) could be easily compromised by an adversary due to constraints such as limited memory space and computing capability. Therefore, it is critical to detect and isolate compromised nodes in order to avoid being misled by the falsified information injected by adversaries through compromised nodes. However, it is challenging to secure the flat topology networks effectively because of the poor scalability and high communication overhead. On top of a hierarchical WSN architecture, a novel algorithm based on Weighted Trust Evaluation (WTE) to detect malicious nodes for hierarchical sensor networks is proposed in this paper. The hierarchical network can reduce the communication overhead among SNs by utilising clustered topology. The proposed algorithm models a cluster of SNs and detects malicious nodes by examining their weights that represent the reliability of SNs. Through intensive simulations, the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed detection algorithm are verified.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; WSNs; network security; hierarchical topology; malicious node detection; weighted evaluation; trust evaluation; malicious nodes; clustering; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICS.2009.028810

International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 2009 Vol.3 No.2, pp.132 - 149

Published online: 03 Oct 2009 *

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