DHT-based detection of node clone in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are vulnerable to the node clone attack because of low-cost, resource-constrained sensor nodes, and uncontrolled environments where they are left unattended. Several distributed protocols have been proposed for detecting clone. However, some protocols rely on an implicit assumption that every node is aware of all other nodes' existence; other protocols using an geographic hash table require that nodes know the general network deployment graph. Those assumptions hardly hold for many sensor networks. In this paper, we present a novel node clone detection protocol based on Distributed Hash Table (DHT). DHT provides good distributed properties and our protocol is practical for every kind of sensor networks. We analyze the protocol performance theoretically. Moreover, we implement our protocol in the OMNeT++ simulation framework. The extensive simulation results show that our protocol can detect clone efficiently and holds strong resistance against adversaries. © 2010 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.