Sentinel based malicious relay detection in wireless IoT networks

Abstract

Increased device connectivity and information sharing in wireless IoT networks increases the risk of cyber attack by malicious nodes. In this paper, we present an effective and practical scheme for detecting data integrity and selective forwarding attacks launched by malicious relays in wireless IoT networks. The proposed scheme exploits the broadcast nature of wireless transmission and provides a sentinel based approach to intrusion detection. Our detection scheme assumes a general noise model for the network where different wireless links may have different packet error probability (PEP). Further, our detection scheme is effective even in scenarios where different wireless links in the network employ distinct modulation and coding schemes at the physical layer. This detection scheme has application in practical wireless IoT networks, such as those based on the recently introduced IEEE 802.11ah standard.