Secure localization with attack detection in wireless sensor networks

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

6-2011

Keywords

Rapid technological advances have enabled the development of low-cost sensor networks for various monitoring tasks, where it is important to estimate the positions of a number of regular sensor nodes whose locations cannot be known apriori. We address the problem of localizing the regular nodes with range-based location references obtained from certain anchor nodes referred to as beacons, particularly in an adverse environment where some of the beacons may be compromised. We propose an innovative modular solution featuring two lightweight modules that are for dedicated functionalities, respectively, but can also be closely integrated. First, we harness simple geometric triangular rules and an efficient voting technique to enable the attack detection module, which identifies and filters out malicious location references. We then develop a secure localization module that computes and clusters certain reference points, and the position of the concerned regular node is estimated with the centroid of the most valuable reference points identified. Extensive simulations show that our attack detection module can detect compromised beacons effectively, and the secure localization module can subsequently provide a dependable localization service in terms of bounded estimation error. The integrated system turns out to be tolerant of malicious attacks even in highly challenging scenarios

Discipline

Information Security

Research Areas

Information Security and Trust

Publication

International Journal of Information Security

Volume

10

Issue

3

First Page

155

Last Page

171

ISSN

1615-5262

Identifier

10.1007/s10207-011-0127-4

Publisher

Springer Verlag

Comments

Sensor network security, Range-based position estimation, Attack detection, Secure localization

Additional URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10207-011-0127-4

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