Intrusion Detection System for Wireless Sensor Networks: A Machine Learning Based Approach

In this era, plenty of wireless devices are being used with the support of WI-FI (Wireless Fidelity) and need to be maintained and authorized. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), a cornerstone of modern wireless technology, offer cost-efficient solutions for diverse monitoring tasks but are exposed to many security threats, including unauthorized access, attacks, and suspicious activities. These vulnerabilities can significantly degrade the performance and reliability of WSNs, making the early detection and mitigation of such threats imperative. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are crucial tools in safeguarding WSNs against these challenges. Numerous studies focus on enhanced Intrusion Detection model accuracy and decrease in loss with higher Detection Rate and lower False Alarm Rate, because of this, eliminating the repetitive feature of the dataset is exhibited. This study introduces a sophisticated Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) to safeguard Wi-Fi-based WSNs from prevalent cyber threats, such as impersonation, flooding, and injection attacks. At the heart of our approach is a meticulous feature selection process that enhances the dataset’s utility by eliminating null values, substituting unknown entries with a placeholder (‘NONE’), and refining the feature set to include only the most relevant indicators of potential security breaches. Initially, from a pool of 154 features, a subset of 76 is selected, further narrowed down to 13 pivotal features, ensuring a focused and efficient analysis. Employing standard scaler function for feature scaling and preprocessing, this research train proposed a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based approach aiming for optimal intrusion detection and prevention across multiclass classifications within WSN environments. The study aims to enhance detection accuracy, reduce loss values, and decrease false alarm rates, comparing it to CNN, Deep Neural Network (DNN) (5), DNN (3), and (Long Short-Term Memory) LSTM networks. The model’s performance is evaluated using various metrics, including precision, recall, support, F1 score, and macro-average. The culmination of our research efforts is evidenced by the exceptional performance of the CNN model, achieving an impressive accuracy rate of 97% and a loss metric of 0.14, all while maintaining a minimal False Alarm Rate. This study significantly advances IDS accuracy while simultaneously reducing false alarms, thus fortifying the security posture of WSNs in the face of evolving cyber threats.