Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: Wireless sensor networks are used, especially in military, tracking and monitoring applications. Security systems play an important role as the wireless nature is susceptible to attacks. The main idea is to analyse the performance of the network when subjected to sinkhole attack for various scenarios. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Limited energy, computational capacity and storage are some of the constraints on sensor networks which make it to analyze in a different way compared to adhoc networks. In this paper, we discuss the various attacks and attributes which are used to detect the attacks and present a simulation on the effect of sinkhole attack based on various set of parameters. The performance of the system is analyzed when the network is being subjected to sinkhole attack considering the scenarios of varying network size, number of compromised node, intruder power and the location of the sinkhole attack. The available detection methods of the sinkhole attack are tabulated. Findings: Parameters such as average energy consumption, throughput and packet delivery ratio are analyzed. It is seen that the network performance is degraded by the implementation of the attack and there is a decrease in parameters analyzed when subjected to various scenarios. Application/ Improvement: The variation of the parameters in the attack scenarios will be useful in formulating a detection algorithm. The network can be analysed for different scenarios and more number of parameters.

Keywords: Attack, Packet Delivery Ratio, Performance Analysis, Sensor Network, Sinkhole, Throughput