An Anomaly-Based Algorithm to Detect Compromised Nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are typically deployed in unattended and hostile environments which are vulnerable to compromises. An adversary can reprogram the sensors with malicious code to launch an intrusion attack. Once a sensor node has been compromised, the security of the network degrades quickly if there are not measures taken to deal with this event. In this paper, the authors develop an anomaly-based intrusion detection algorithm to detect compromised nodes in wireless sensor networks. The idea is to use packet arrival time as the primary parameter to differentiate the legitimate nodes and the suspicious nodes. Once the suspected node has been deemed compromised by the base station, this information is then propagated to the rest of the network.