Compromised Sensor Nodes Detection: A Quantitative Approach

In a wireless sensor network, an adversary may crack legal nodes or deploy malicious nodes to launch various attacks. These nodes are collectively called compromised nodes. In this paper, we define a data transmission quality (DTQ) function to differentiate the legitimate nodes and compromised nodes. The DTQ function is defined in a way that it will keep close to constant or change smoothly for legitimate nodes and will keep decreasing for suspicious nodes. The final decision of whether or not a suspicious node is compromised is determined by a group voting procedure. Simulations were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the design.