A security architecture and modular intrusion detection system for WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are deployed in a wide range of application scenarios. These typically involve monitoring or surveillance of animals or humans, infrastructure, or territories. Since security as well as privacy play an increasingly important role in these contexts, sensor nodes and sensor networks need to be protected from spurious environmental effects and malicious attacks. In addition to attacks known from conventional wireless networks, the specific properties of WSNs lead to new kinds of attack. Moreover, countermeasures are subject to strict resource limitations of the motes and, therefore, have to be light-weight and effective at the same time. In this paper, we first present a comprehensive security architecture for WSNs, consisting of different attack types (including WSN-specific attacks) and countermeasures. Second, we propose a modular Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as a framework for this architecture. Finally, we give details on selected modules and discuss practical implementation issues.