TinyAFD: Attack and Fault Detection Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are especially vulnerable to malicious attacks because of the limited resources available on the sensor nodes. When conducted against WSNs that run critical applications, such as military surveillance, these attacks may threaten human lives. Therefore, it is important to integrate strong security mechanisms for protecting critical applications that run on top of WSNs. In this paper, we propose a security solution for detecting attacks and faults in WSNs, called Tiny Attack and Fault Detection Framework (TinyAFD). The framework is modular, as it consists of engines able to detect different attacks based on signatures, providing the possibility to modify signatures at runtime and to easily integrate new specialized engines. We implemented TinyAFD in TinyOS and conducted multiple tests in order to evaluate the functionality and performance of the framework. In comparison with alternative solutions, TinyAFD is modular, configurable and extensible, and it mitigates most well-known attacks, while being energy efficient.