A Comparison of Physical Attacks on Wireless Sensor Networks

ABSTRACT Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have many potential applications [1, 5] and unique challenges. They usually consist of hundreds or thousands small sensor nodes such as MICA2, which operate autonomously; conditions such as cost, invisible deployment and many application domains, lead to small size and limited resources sensors [2]. WSNs are susceptible to many types of physical attacks [1] and most of traditional networks security techniques are unusable on WSNs[2]; due to wireless and shared nature of communication channel, untrusted transmissions, deployment in open environments, unattended nature and limited resources [1]. So, security is a vital requirement for these networks; but we have to design a proper security mechanism that attends to WSN's constraints and requirements. In this paper, we focus on security of WSNs, divide it (the WSNs security) into four categories and will consider them, include: an overview of WSNs, security in WSNs, the threat model on WSNs, a wide variety of WSNs' physical attacks and a comparison of them. This work enables us to identify the purpose and capabilities of the attackers; also, the goal, final result and effects of the physical attacks on WSNs are introduced. Also this paper discusses known approaches of security detection and defensive mechanisms against the physical attacks; this would enable it security managers to manage the physical attacks of WSNs more effectively.