Energy-Efficient Link-Layer Jamming Attacks against Wireless Sensor Network MAC Protocols

Yee Wei Law, Lodewijk van Hoesel, Jeroen Doumen, Pieter Hartel, Paul Havinga

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

    83 Citations (Scopus)
    432 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    A typical wireless sensor node has little protection against radio jamming. The situation becomes worse if energy efficient jamming can be achieved by exploiting knowledge of the data link layer. Encrypting the packets may help prevent the jammer from taking actions based on the content of the packets, but the temporal arrangement of the packets induced by the nature of the protocol might unravel patterns that the jammer can take advantage of even when the packets are encrypted. By looking at the packet interarrival times in three representative MAC protocols, S-MAC, LMAC and B-MAC, we derive several jamming attacks that allow the jammer to jam S-MAC, LMAC and B-MAC energy-efficiently. The jamming attacks are based on realistic assumptions. The algorithms, using expectation maximization in case of S-MAC, or K-means in case of LMAC, or low-power listening in case of B-MAC, are described in detail and simulated. The effectiveness and efficiency of the attacks are examined. The result of this investigation provides new insights into the security considerations of MAC protocols.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationSASN '05
    Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 3rd ACM Workshop on Security of Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks (SASN)
    EditorsV. Atluri, P. Samarati, P. Ning, W. Du
    Place of PublicationNew York
    PublisherACM Press
    Pages76-88
    Number of pages13
    ISBN (Print)978-1-59593-227-3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2005
    Event3rd ACM Workshop on Security of Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks, SASN 2005 - Alexandria, United States
    Duration: 7 Nov 20057 Nov 2005
    Conference number: 3

    Workshop

    Workshop3rd ACM Workshop on Security of Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks, SASN 2005
    Abbreviated titleSASN
    Country/TerritoryUnited States
    CityAlexandria
    Period7/11/057/11/05

    Keywords

    • CAES-PS: Pervasive Systems
    • SCS-Cybersecurity
    • 2023 OA procedure

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Energy-Efficient Link-Layer Jamming Attacks against Wireless Sensor Network MAC Protocols'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this