Title
Effects of Denial-of-Sleep Attacks on Wireless Sensor Network MAC Protocols
Abstract
Wireless platforms are becoming less expensive and more powerful, enabling the promise of widespread use for everything from health monitoring to military sensing. Like other networks, sensor networks are vulnerable to malicious attack. However, the hardware simplicity of these devices makes defense mechanisms designed for traditional networks infeasible. This paper explores the denial-of-sleep attack, in which a sensor node's power supply is targeted. Attacks of this type can reduce the sensor lifetime from years to days and have a devastating impact on a sensor network. This paper classifies sensor network denial-of-sleep attacks in terms of an attacker's knowledge of the medium access control (MAC) layer protocol and ability to bypass authentication and encryption protocols. Attacks from each classification are then modeled to show the impacts on four sensor network MAC protocols, i.e., Sensor MAC (S-MAC), Timeout MAC (T-MAC), Berkeley MAC (B-MAC), and Gateway MAC (G-MAC). Implementations of selected attacks on S-MAC, T-MAC, and B-MAC are described and analyzed in detail to validate their effectiveness and analyze their efficiency. Our analysis shows that the most efficient attack on S-MAC can keep a cluster of nodes awake 100% of the time by an attacker that sleeps 99% of the time. Attacks on T-MAC can keep victims awake 100% of the time while the attacker sleeps 92% of the time. A framework for preventing denial-of-sleep attacks in sensor networks is also introduced. With full protocol knowledge and an ability to penetrate link-layer encryption, all wireless sensor network MAC protocols are susceptible to a full domination attack, which reduces the network lifetime to the minimum possible by maximizing the power consumption of the nodes' radio subsystem. Even without the ability to penetrate encryption, subtle attacks can be launched, which reduce the network lifetime by orders of magnitude. If sensor networks are to meet current expectations, they mu- - st be robust in the face of network attacks to include denial-of-sleep.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1109/TVT.2008.921621
Vehicular Technology, IEEE Transactions
Keywords
Field
DocType
access protocols,cryptography,wireless sensor networks,berkeley mac,gateway mac,mac protocols,sensor mac,timeout mac,bypass authentication,denial-of-sleep attacks,encryption protocols,health monitoring,medium access control layer protocol,military sensing,node radio subsystem,wireless sensor network,medium access control (mac),wireless security,wireless sensor networks (wsns),timing attack,wireless application protocol,defense mechanism,link layer,authentication,sensor network,hardware
Sensor node,Key distribution in wireless sensor networks,Wireless security,Computer science,Computer security,Computer network,Encryption,Default gateway,Mobile wireless sensor network,Wireless Application Protocol,Wireless sensor network
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
58
1
0018-9545
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
53
2.41
16
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
David R. Raymond11777.97
randy marchany217515.88
Michael I. Brownfield3532.41
f midkiff419817.54