An Enhanced Scheme to Defend against False-Endorsement-Based DoS Attacks in WSNs

Node compromise is a serious threat in wireless sensor networks, as it enables an adversary to perform various attacks. Many security schemes exploit the redundancy of many wireless sensor networks to mitigate the impact of node compromise. A report for the base station, generated by one node, must be endorsed by multiple neighboring sensor nodes. However, already proposed schemes are susceptible to False-Endorsement-Based Denial of Service attacks, where a compromised node sends a false endorsement that invalidates the collaboratively generated report. A formerly proposed scheme addresses such an attack, thereby enabling the detection and exclusion of false endorsing nodes. However, a jamming attack can result in a false exclusion of non-compromised nodes. In this paper, we discuss possible solutions to prevent false exclusions of non-compromised nodes and propose an extended scheme.