A new method of defeating reactive jamming: Hardware Design Approach

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a physical bridge that connects the real world to the digital world. Due to recent advances in an Internet of things and Industrial 4.0, more extensive WSN devices are used in industries ranging from the aerospace system, smart grid, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and drone application to the military investigation. However, due to the nature of WSNs, attackers can easily deploy various security threats to make WSN network vulnerable and unstable. The easiest way to attack WSN network is through the jamming attack with a little bit knowledge of targeted communication system. Standardisation of wireless communications used in various industries makes the attackers easy to design a smart reactive jamming device. In this paper, a new method using a timing channel is proposed to defeat the reactive jammer. To validate the proposed method, a smart reactive jamming device, a transmitter and a receiver are implemented in hardware. Test results are presented, showing how the method can defeat the reactive jamming attack.