Enhanced Distributed Detection Protocol for Node Replication Attack

Wireless sensor networks are harmed to the node clone, and different distributed protocols have been proposed to detect this attack. However, they require too strong assumptions to be practical for randomly deployed sensor networks. Here, two new node clone detection protocols with different tradeoffs on network conditions and performance are proposed. The first one is based on a DHT concept which abbreviated as distributed hash table, by which a fully decentralized, key-based caching and checking system is constructed to catch cloned nodes effectively. The protocol performance on efficient storage consumption and high security level is theoretically deducted through a probability model, and the resulting equations, with necessary modification for real application, are supported by the simulations. But the DHT-based protocol incurs similar communication cost as previous techniques, it may be considered a little high for some scenarios. To overcome communication cost problem our second approach RDE/DDE distributed detection protocol, named randomly directed exploration, presents good communication performance for dense sensor networks, by a probabilistic directed forwarding technique along with random initial direction and border determination. The simulation results uphold the protocol design and show its efficiency on communication overhead and satisfactory detection probability.