Thursday, May 30, 2013

Wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor network

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are an emerging and very interesting technology applied to different applications. They are formed by small, self organized devices that cooperate to form a large scale network with thousands of nodes covering a large area. The independent operation of the devices and the self-organization feature of the network present some challenges related to security, particularly regarding the security of the processed and routed data over the network.
As wireless sensor networks continue to grow, so does the need for effective security mechanisms. Because sensor networks may interact with sensitive data and/or operate in hostile unattended environments, it is imperative that these security concerns be addressed from the beginning of the system design. However, due to inherent resource and computing constraints, security in sensor networks poses different challenges than traditional network/computer security. There is currently enormous research potential in the field of wireless sensor network security. Thus, familiarity with the current research in this field will benefit researchers greatly. With this in mind, we survey the major topics in wireless sensor network security, and present the obstacles and the requirements in the sensor security, classify many of the current attacks, and finally list their corresponding defensive measures.