Sinkhole Attack: A security issue in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are used in many applications in military, ecological, and health-related areas. These applications often include the monitoring of sensitive information such as enemy movement on the battlefield or the location of personnel in a building. Security is therefore important in WSNs. However, WSNs suffer from many constraints, including low computation capability, small memory, limited energy resources, susceptibility to physical capture, and the use of insecure wireless communication channels. These constraints make security in WSNs a challenge. In this article we discuss security issues in WSNs.

In a wireless sensor network, multiple nodes would send sensor readings to a base station for further processing. It is well-known that such a many-to-one communication is highly vulnerable to the sinkhole attack, where an intruder attracts surrounding nodes with unfaithful routing information, and then performs selective forwarding or alters the data passing through it. A sinkhole attack forms a serious threat to sensor networks, particularly considering that such networks are often deployed in open areas and of weak computation and battery power. In this paper, we discuss SINKHOLE ATTACK as a major problem in wireless sensor networks. Later on an efficient algorithm will be designed to prevent the network from these type of attacks.