A secure trust establishment in wireless sensor networks

A functionality of wireless sensor networks depends on the cooperation of the sensor nodes in the network. A trust is major driving force to cooperate among sensors. Hence, trust establishment can be promising technique to improve network functionality. Moreover, trust establishment has been recognized as powerful tool to provide security. We propose a secure trust estimation method which does not allow malicious node to increase its trust value asrtificially. Unlike traditional trust estimation approaches, proposed scheme calculates trust on nodes based on only a bad behavior. Misbehavior of a node is weighted and based on the weighted misbehavior trust value is decreased. Since trust is dynamic nature, a node can increase its trust value if it does not misbehave. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed trust estimation method.