Distributed Denial of Service Attack Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks have emerged as a significant source for the study and analysis of data from the environment. These networks are deployed in harsh and inaccessible environments with the purpose of monitoring their respective surroundings, and generating observed readings, for delivery to a centralised entity, for further data analysis. Sensor nodes are tiny devices with limited available resources for performing all their sensory operations, and be sustained for their entire lifetime. Applications of wireless sensor networks such as battlefield monitoring, bushfire monitoring and surveillance, are mission-critical in nature. The timeliness and accuracy in the delivery of the sensory data affects several mitigation efforts that may be launched upon successful detection of a particular event in the environment. Therefore, it is essential to protect such networks from malicious attacks, that may be launched by the adversary-class, with the intent of causing loss to the network operations. Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS) attacks are defined as attacks launched from multiple ends of a wireless sensor network towards a set of legitimate sensor nodes, with the intent of exhausting their limited energy resources. These attacks can significantly affect the performance of the network, and eventually lead to complete compromise of all sensor nodes of the network. The consequences of such an attack, if left undetected, can be catastrophic to the operations of the entire network.