Enhancing base station anonymity in WSNs: a security framework using ring routing, fake packet injection, and dynamic coverage

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) represent a computing network model where devices with limited resources are deployed for detailed, remote sensing tasks. Within a WSN, the Base Station (BS) plays a pivotal role in orchestrating and facilitating the communication between sensor nodes (SNs) and external platforms for data processing and application. Due to this central role, the BS becomes a key target for attacks. Attackers can deduce the BS’s physical position using Traffic Volume Analysis (TVA) or Packet Tracing Analysis (PTA). TVA is based on the concept that the BS has the highest traffic, as it acts as the main data aggregation point, whereas PTA capitalizes on the fact that the BS is the endpoint for WSN packets. Consequently, a TVA attacker (TVAA) seeks out the node with the most traffic, while a PTA attacker (PTAA) identifies the packet’s endpoint to pinpoint the BS location. In this study, we introduce a security framework designed to obscure the BS’s physical location from both TVAA and PTAA. Our approach integrates the ring routing method with Fake Packet Injection (FPI) to hide the BS. Additionally, it dynamically controls the SNs’ coverage by putting high-traffic clusters into sleep mode, thus conserving energy, while maintaining acceptable coverage. This system effectively conceals the BS from both attack methods, outperforming adding standalone techniques against PTA and TVA. Nonetheless, it results in an energy consumption increase of 78.95% (primarily due to FPI) compared to a non-secure network, but achieves up to 85.42% energy savings relative to systems using ring routing and FPI without dynamic coverage.