On the Reliability of Wireless Sensors with Software-Based Attestation for Intrusion Detection

Wireless sensor nodes are widely used in many areas, including military operation surveillance, natural phenomenon monitoring, and medical diagnosis data collection. These applications need to store and transmit sensitive or secret data, which requires intrusion detection mechanisms be deployed to ensure sensor node health, as well as to maintain quality of service and survivability. Because wireless sensors have inherent resource constraints, it is crucial to reduce energy consumption due to intrusion detection activities. In this paper by means of a probability model, we analyze the best frequency at which intrusion detection based on probabilistic code attestation on the sensor node should be performed so that the sensor reliability is maximized by exploiting the trade-off between the energy consumption and intrusion detection effectiveness. When given a set of parameter values characterizing the operational and networking conditions, a sensor can dynamically set its intrusion detection rate identified by the mathematical model to maximize its reliability and the expected sensor lifetime.