Paper 2008/158 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2008/158 ↗

DISH: Distributed Self-Healing in Unattended Sensor Networks

Abstract

Unattended wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) operating in hostile environments face the risk of compromise. % by a mobile adversary. Unable to off-load collected data to a sink or some other trusted external entity, sensors must protect themselves by attempting to mitigate potential compromise and safeguarding their data. In this paper, we focus on techniques that allow unattended sensors to recover from intrusions by soliciting help from peer sensors. We define a realistic adversarial model and show how certain simple defense methods can result in sensors re-gaining secrecy and authenticity of collected data, despite adversary's efforts to the contrary. We present an extensive analysis and a set of simulation results that support our observations and demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed techniques.