Title: PVFS: A Probabilistic Voting-based Filtering Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

Authors: Feng Li, Avinash Srinivasan, Jie Wu

Addresses: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA. ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA. ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA

Abstract: In this paper, we study two important attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs): the fabricated report with false votes attack; the false votes on real reports attack. Most of the existing works address the first attack while leaving an easy way for the attackers to launch the second. We draw our motivation from this and propose a Probabilistic Voting-based Filtering Scheme (PVFS) to deal with both of these attacks simultaneously. With the general en-route filtering scheme as the underlying model, PVFS combines cluster-based organisation, probabilistic key assignment, and voting methods to curtail these attacks. Through both analysis and simulation, we demonstrate that PVFS can achieve strong protection against both the aforementioned attacks while maintaining a sufficiently high filtering power.

Keywords: cluster-based organisation; en-route filtering; fabricated report attack; false votes attack; probabilistic key assignment; voting method; WSNs; wireless sensor networks; wireless networks; network security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSN.2008.020091

International Journal of Security and Networks, 2008 Vol.3 No.3, pp.173 - 182

Published online: 26 Aug 2008 *

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