Secure DV-Hop localization scheme against wormhole attacks in wireless sensor networks

ABSTRACT Localization is an important topic in mobile wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, which has received considerable attention from the research community during the past few decades. In many sensor networks applications, location awareness is useful or even necessary. However, because of their key role in wireless sensor networks, localization systems can be the target of an attack that could compromise the entire functioning of a wireless sensor network. In this paper, we present a novel defense mechanism against wormhole attacks in DV‐Hop localization algorithm. The main idea of our approach is to plug in a proactive countermeasure to the basic DV‐Hop scheme called Infection prevention. We choose the wormhole attack as our defending target because it is a particularly challenging attack that can be successfully launched without compromising any nodes or having access to any cryptographic keys. Using analysis and simulation, we show that our solution is effective in detecting and defending against wormhole attacks with a high detection rate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.