Watchdog-LEACH: A new method based on LEACH protocol to Secure Clustered Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network comprises of small sensor nodes with limited resources. Clustered networks have been proposed in many researches to reduce the power consumption in sensor networks. LEACH is one of the most interested techniques that offer an efficient way to minimize the power consumption in sensor networks. However, due to the characteristics of restricted resources and operation in a hostile environment, WSNs are subjected to numerous threats and are vulnerable to attacks. This research proposes a solution that can be applied on LEACH to increase the level of security. In Watchdog-LEACH, some nodes are considered as watchdogs and some changes are applied on LEACH protocol for intrusion detection. Watchdog-LEACH is able to protect against a wide range of attacks and it provides security, energy efficiency and memory efficiency. The result of simulation shows that in comparison to LEACH, the energy overhead is about 2% so this method is practical and can be applied to WSNs.

[1]  Antonio Alfredo Ferreira Loureiro,et al.  On the Security of Cluster-Based Communication Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2005, ICN.

[2]  Selvakennedy Selvadurai,et al.  A Configurable Time-Controlled Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2005, 11th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS'05).

[3]  Baohua Zhao,et al.  Trust-Based LEACH Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2008, 2008 Second International Conference on Future Generation Communication and Networking.

[4]  J.A. Stankovic,et al.  Denial of Service in Sensor Networks , 2002, Computer.

[5]  Virgil D. Gligor,et al.  A key-management scheme for distributed sensor networks , 2002, CCS '02.

[6]  Geng Yang,et al.  A Security Routing Mechanism Against Sybil Attack for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Communications and Mobile Computing.

[7]  C. Karlof,et al.  Secure routing in wireless sensor networks: attacks and countermeasures , 2003, Proceedings of the First IEEE International Workshop on Sensor Network Protocols and Applications, 2003..

[8]  Sasikanth Avancha,et al.  Security for Sensor Networks , 2004 .

[9]  Jianying Zhou,et al.  Applying intrusion detection systems to wireless sensor networks , 2006, CCNC 2006. 2006 3rd IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, 2006..

[10]  Sipra Das Bit,et al.  Ensuring Basic Security and Preventing Replay Attack in a Query Processing Application Domain in WSN , 2010, ICCSA.

[11]  Mohammed A. Abuhelaleh,et al.  Armor-LEACH - Energy Efficient, Secure Wireless Networks Communication , 2008, 2008 Proceedings of 17th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks.

[12]  Ricardo Dahab,et al.  SecLEACH - A Random Key Distribution Solution for Securing Clustered Sensor Networks , 2006, Fifth IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA'06).

[13]  Wade Trappe,et al.  An authentication framework for hierarchical ad hoc sensor networks , 2003, WiSe '03.