Denial of service (DoS) defence for resource availability in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) over the years have become one of the most promising networking solutions with exciting new applications for the near future. Its deployment has been enhanced by its small, inexpensive and smart sensor nodes, which are easily deployed, depending on its application and coverage area. Common applications include its use for military operations, monitoring environmental conditions (such as volcano detection, agriculture and management), distributed control systems, healthcare and detection of radioactive sources. Notwithstanding its promising attributes, security in WSN is a big challenge and remains an ongoing research trend. Deployed sensor nodes are vulnerable to various security attacks due to its architecture, hostile deployment location and insecure routing protocol. Furthermore, the sensor nodes in WSNs are characterised by their resource constraints, such as, limited energy, low bandwidth, short communication range, limited processing and storage capacity which have made the sensor nodes an easy target. Therefore, in this work, we present a review of DoS attacks that affect resource availability in WSN and their countermeasure by presenting a taxonomy. Future research directions and open research issues are also discussed.