Locating and Disregarding the Information from Compromised Sensors in a WSN

Security of wireless sensor networks and reliability of the data that they generate is very critical for the intended monitoring and control applications. The information received from a sensor may be compromised because of sensor malfunction, communication link failure, or jamming attacks. This paper proposes an algorithm for locating the compromised sensor within a network of cooperating sensors and disregarding the information it sends to the base station. Thus, the final decision regarding the information collected from the sensors is less affected by the compromised sensors. This helps prevent activating wrong response mechanisms based on the compromised received information. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm effectively locates the compromised sensors and improves the reliability of the final decision at the base station.