An RSSI-based scheme for sybil attack detection in wireless sensor networks

A sybil node impersonates other nodes by broadcasting messages with multiple node identifiers (ID). In contrast to existing solutions which are based on sharing encryption keys, we present a robust and lightweight solution for sybil attack problem based on received signal strength indicator (RSSI) readings of messages. Our solution is robust since it detects all sybil attack cases with 100% completeness and less than a few percent false positives. Our solution is lightweight in the sense that alongside the receiver we need the collaboration of one other node (i.e., only one message communication) for our protocol. We show through experiments that even though RSSI is time-varying and unreliable in general and radio transmission is non-isotropic, using ratio of RSSIs from multiple receivers it is feasible to overcome these problems.