Reputation-based trust model for secure routing in wireless sensor networks -

Abstract

Sensor network technology has gained much attention in the past few years as it promises to improve data collection and statistical analysis. This technology promises to improve data collection and statistical analysis and to have an important role in pervasive computing. However, sensor nodes are severely constrained in memory, processing power, and energy resources. In addition, they are prone to several security attacks due to their wireless nature and their deployment in open and unattended areas. There are several methods to detect misbehaving nodes and provide secure routing while accounting for energy consumption and lengthening the network lifetime; among these are: reputation- and trust-based methods, location isolation, and behavior-based techniques. In this dissertation, we present CENTERA, a CENtralized Trust-based Efficient Routing protocol with an appropriate Authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks (WSN). CENTERA utilizes the more powerful base station (BS) to gather minimal neighbor trust information from nodes and calculate the best routes after isolating different types of misbehaving nodes. Periodically accumulating these simple local observations and approximating the nodes’ battery levels, the BS draws a global view of the network, calculates three quality metrics –maliciousness, cooperation, and compatibility, and evaluates Data Trust and Forwarding Trust values for each node. Based on these metrics, the BS isolates “bad” nodes, misbehaving or malicious, for a certain period of time, and put some nodes on probation. CENTERA increases the node’s bad-probation level with repeated misbehavior, and decreases it otherwise. Then it uses a very efficient method to distribute the routing information to “good” nodes. Based on its target environment, and if required, CENTERA uses an authentication scheme suitable for severely constrained nodes, ranging from the symmetric RC5 for safe environments under close administration, to pairing-based cryp