A Survey on Energy Depletion Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Networks provide promising applications that depend on sensing. They are widely used applications in the real world for environment monitoring, studying wildlife habitat, observing troop deployment in military, studying factor performance and so on. These networks are used in both military and civilian applications. They became indispensable for some organizations and people for day to day operations. Therefore 100 % availability of the network is crucial for maximum benefits. When the availability of the network goes down, it has potential risks such as production loss, loss of lives, environmental disasters and power outages. As the nodes in WSN are resource constrained, it is essential that they do utilize energy efficiently. When the energy is drained, the network life is reduced. This is the truth that has attracted adversaries to launch attacks for depleting power. Such attacks drain life from WSNs. Recently Vasserman and Hopper [1] explored resource depletion attacks and prevention measures in Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Networks. Such attacks were named vampire attacks that are made based on the vulnerabilities of routing protocols. As the availability is of network is crucial for underlying applications which are machine critical in nature, this research has assumed importance. From the initial review of literature the following research objectives are conceived. Research Objectives To propose and implement a novel protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Network which is robust to vampire attacks that drain life from the network thus reducing the availability of network. To propose mechanisms for deriving damage bounds and defenses for topology discovery which will help in evicting vampires. This will make a satisfactory solution. To simulate the protocol using NS2 in order to demonstrate the proof of concept and compare the results with existing approaches. Reference Eugene Y. Vasserman and Nicholas Hopper, Vampire Attacks: Draining Life from Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Networks, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, VOL.12, NO.2, FEBRUARY 2013, p1-15.