A danger theory inspired protection approach for hierarchical wireless sensor networks

Abstract

With the application of wireless sensor networks in the fields of ecological observation, defense military, architecture and urban management etc., the security problem is becoming more and more serious. Characteristics and constraint conditions of wireless sensor networks such as computing power, storage space and battery have brought huge challenges to protection research. Inspired by the danger theory in biological immune system, this paper proposes an intrusion detection model for wireless sensor networks. The model abstracts expressions of antigens and antibodies in wireless sensor networks, defines meanings and functions of danger signals and danger areas, and expounds the process of intrusion detection based on the danger theory. The model realizes the distributed deployment, and there is no need to arrange an instance at each sensor node. In addition, sensor nodes trigger danger signals according to their own environmental information, and do not need to communicate with other nodes, which saves resources. When danger is perceived, the model acquires the global knowledge through node cooperation, and can perform more accurate real-time intrusion detection. In this paper, the performance of the model is analyzed including complexity and efficiency, and experimental results show that the model has good detection performance and reduces energy consumption.