Detection of wormhole attacks in wireless sensor networks using range-free localization

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), due to the limited resources of the nodes, are highly vulnerable to attacks at all network layers; however, the so-called “wormhole attack” is particularly challenging because it resists defensive measures exclusively based on cryptographic protocols. In this paper we propose two wormhole detection procedures for WSNs, based on concepts employed in a kind of range-free localization methods: one of the approaches performs the detection simultaneously with the localization procedure, and the other operates after the conclusion of the location discovery protocol. Both strategies are effective in detecting wormhole attacks, but their performance is fairly sensitive to shadowing effects present in the radio channels.