Detecting Link Correlation Spoofing Attack: A Beacon-Trap Approach

Incorporating link correlation awareness into wireless network protocols to facilitate data transmission is an important research issue. In this paper, we focus on link correlation based security threat and countermeasure in wireless networks. By taking advantage of the vulnerability of beacon-based link correlation measurement and the blind spot of malicious node detection mechanisms, we design a new type of link correlation spoofing attack (LCSA) to decrease protocol performance by distorting link correlation information while escaping the tracking of any watchdog and trust systems. Typical cases are analyzed to quantify how the LCSA covertly weakens protocol performance. We also propose beacon-trap (BT), a countermeasure embedded in the beacon-based link condition measurement protocol. Using link diversity as a cover, BT sets traps in the beacon sending sequence to ambush malicious nodes that launch LCSAs without extra control overhead. The performance of BT is not affected by changes in the size of a network or the distribution of nodes. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority and effectiveness of BT against LCSAs in terms of malicious node detection success rate and speed under different parameter settings.