Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2008/158

DISH: Distributed Self-Healing in Unattended Sensor Networks

Di Ma and Gene Tsudik

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.

Category / Keywords: applications / unattended wireless sensor network, data secrecy, self-healing

Publication Info: not published, as a technical report

Date: received 8 Apr 2008, last revised 24 Aug 2008

Contact author: dma1 at ics uci edu

Available format(s): Postscript (PS) | Compressed Postscript (PS.GZ) | PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20080825:010740 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2008/158

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