Fuzzy-based detection of injected false data in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are vulnerable to false data injection attacks in which an adversary injects fabricated reports into the network with the goal of deceiving the base station or of draining the energy resources. Several security solutions against the attacks have been proposed by researchers. Most of them, however, make nodes to involve additional computation and communication overhead in the report generation and forwarding processes, which may result in extra energy consumption. This paper presents a false data detection method that exploits a fuzzy rule-based system to verify the authenticity of sensing reports in sensor networks. Three parameters computed based on the collected reports in the base station are used for the verification. Compared to the existing crisp-based detection solutions, the method can reduce errors in the detection, thanks to approximate reasoning provided by fuzzy logic. Compared to the en-route filtering solutions, extra energy can be also conserved since it involves neither complex report generation nor en-route verification. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.