Integration of WSNs into Internet of Things

A Security Perspective

Sudhir Kumar Sharma, Bharat Bhushan, Raghvendra Kumar, Aditya Khamparia, Narayan C. Debnath

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367620196
• eBook ISBN: 9781000370058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Informatica
• Subtopic: Intelligenza artificiale (IA) e semantica

The Internet has gone from an Internet of people to an Internet of Things (IoT). This has brought forth strong levels of complexity in handling interoperability that involves the integrating of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) into IoT. This book offers insights into the evolution, usage, challenges, and proposed countermeasures associated with the integration.

Focusing on the integration of WSNs into IoT and shedding further light on the subtleties of such integration, this book aims to highlight the encountered problems and provide suitable solutions. It throws light on the various types of threats that can attack both WSNs and IoT along with the recent approaches to counter them.

This book is designed to be the first choice of reference at research and development centers, academic institutions, university libraries, and any institution interested in the integration of WSNs into IoT. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, Ph.D. scholars, industry technologists, young entrepreneurs, and researchers working in the field of security and privacy in IoT are the primary audience of this book.

1 Security Issues, Vulnerabilities, and Defense Mechanisms in Wireless Sensor Networks: State of the Art and Recommendation

N. Rahimi and B. Gupta

Southern Illinois University

CONTENTS

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Applications of WSNs

1.3 Threats and Challenges

1.4 Taxonomy of WSN Attacks

1.4.1 Attacks Based on the Capability of the Attacker

1.4.2 Attacks on Information in Transit

1.4.3 Host-Based Versus Network-Based Attacks

1.4.4 Attacks Based on Protocol Stack

1.5 Passive Attack

1.6 Active Attack

1.7 Objectives of Network Security

1.7.1 Primary Objectives

1.7.2 Secondary Objectives

1.8 New Defense Mechanisms

1.8.1 Algorithm Strength Analysis

1.8.2 Length of Ciphertext

1.9 Conclusion

References

1.1 Introduction

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are infrastructure-less and auto-configured wireless networks designed to observe or monitor physical conditions such as environmental factors including pressure, temperature, pollutants, and sound, among others, and to collaboratively pass individual data across the network to a base station (BS) while such data can be monitored and examined [1,2]. A typical WSN may consist of several thousands of sensor nodes with individual nodes relying on radio signals to communicate among themselves. The BS, also denoted as a sink, provides a link between the network and its authorized users. Such users can access or retrieve data from the WSN by entering search queries and retrieving results as generated by the BS. The aforementioned wireless sensor nodes possess power components, sensing and computing devices, and radio transceivers that allow them to perform these functions. In some instances, wireless sensor devices can acknowledge to input entered from a control site with instructions to perform determined functions such as providing information on a particular condition. However, with each technological innovation or advancement, such as the WSN discussed above, there is equal development of threats to such technological inventions. Subsequently, while WSNs are critical components in health care, military, and environmental applications, their vulnerabilities expose users to a wide array of security issues that are constantly evolving [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. This research paper will address security issues, vulnerabilities, and propose to use our recently reported three-phase symmetric cipher algorithm in WSNs [6]. There are a number of the advantages associated with our proposed method. First of all, in order to prevent efforts to exploit the cipher key, this algorithm advances the level of confusion and diffusion to a degree to create the statistical connection between the plaintext and the ciphertext as compound as possible. To achieve this, the cipher algorithm is designed to make the ciphertext lengthier than the plaintext. This variation in length complicates the statistical association between the plaintext and ciphertext, making the cryptanalysis procedure tremendously challenging.

This chapter begins by developing a common ground with respect to applications of WSNs. In Sections 1.3 and 1.4, the threats and challenges in WSNs and the taxonomy of WSN attacks will be discussed. We investigate passive and active attacks in Sections 1.5 and 1.6, respectively. The objectives of network security will be presented in Section 1.7. In Section 1.8, our defense mechanism will be proposed. Section 1.9 draws the conclusion.

1.2 Applications of WSNs

WSNs have various uses such as healthcare applications, environmental monitoring, military services, and commercial applications, among others. In healthcare services, WSNs can be used to monitor patients within the clinical setting [7]. For instance, sensors are capable of providing clinicians with an easy and effective mechanism to monitor physiological functions within a hospital. Furthermore, sensors can also be used to track the patient movement within a hospital for monitoring purposes, as well as to help nurses and doctors faster access to patients in times of emergencies.

Additionally, WSNs are crucial in the military application, such as detecting intrusions, parameter monitoring, and surveillance. Moreover, WSNs can be used by military personnel before an armed operation to determine the weather conditions of remote areas since weather changes can have significant influences on military outcomes. Since WSNs are capable of providing real-time data, their importance in surveillance capabilities and functions such as detecting movements from hostile combatants plays an essential role in modern warfare [8].

Finally, WSNs can be used to monitor air pollution, monitor water pollution, for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs), and for agricultural applications. In the case of agricultural monitoring, WSNs can be used in animal tracking, greenhouse monitoring, such as determining soil humidity and environmental temperatures, and pollution control. Finally, it was posited that conservationists and animal park managers can use WSNs to monitor and track the movement of wildlife as well as the potential disposal of harmful water into their habitats [4,5].

1.3 Threats and Challenges

There are several security issues associated with WSNs due to the constraints associated with the simplicity of developing sensor node hardware, in addition to their areas of deployment like hostile environments during military conflicts. One of the issues resulting in vulnerabilities in WSNs arises from the fact that the cost of the WSN is required to be least possible. This means that most developers of WSNs are less likely to utilize complex tamper-resistant hardware in the event a sensor node is physically captured [8,9]. Another crucial security issue associated with WSNs is the fact that sensor nodes rely on wireless communication, which is easier to eavesdrop on during communi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Editors
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 Security Issues, Vulnerabilities, and Defense Mechanisms in Wireless Sensor Networks: State of the Art and Recommendation
• Chapter 2 Security Attacks and Countermeasures in Wireless Sensor Networks
• Chapter 3 Overview of Ubiquitous Computing and a Modern Look in Current Times
• Chapter 4 Cryptanalysis and Security Evaluation Using Artificial Neural Networks
• Chapter 5 Post-Quantum Cryptography on Wireless Sensor Networks: Challenges and Opportunities
• Chapter 6 Performance Evaluation Using Different Routing Protocols in MANETs
• Chapter 7 Smart Agriculture Using Wireless Sensor Networks
• Chapter 8 Big Data Analytics for Wireless Sensor Networks and Smart Grids: Applications, Design Issues, and Future Challenges
• Chapter 9 A New Algorithm Proposed for the Disaggregation of Loads in the Smart Grid Context
• Chapter 10 A Security Paradigm of WSN, IoT, and CPS: Challenges and Solutions
• Chapter 11 IoT: Fundamentals and Challenges
• Chapter 12 Enabling Technologies, Attacks, and Machine Learning-Based Countermeasures for IoT and IIoT
• Chapter 13 Applications of AI and ML in IoT
• Chapter 14 Ubiquitous Computing for the Management, Evaluation, Treatment, and Rehabilitation of Psychological Disorders
• Chapter 15 Challenges and Vulnerabilities of WSN-Based IoT in the Healthcare and Medical Industry
• Chapter 16 Blockchain Technology for Healthcare Cloud-Based Data Privacy and Security
• Index