Wireless Sensor Network Security Against Blackhole Attack — Complete Documentation & Simulation

Overview & System Context

Wireless Sensor Network Security Against Blackhole Attack: Comprehensive Web-Sourced Technical Investigation Exhaustive Research Dossier · Pure Web-Scraped Content: ~4004 Words · Real Software Screenshots: 3 1. Executive Overview & Technical Background Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental conditions such as temperature, sound, pollution levels, humidity and wind. These are similar to wireless ad hoc networks in the sense that they rely on wireless connectivity and spontaneous formation of networks so that sensor data can be transported wirelessly. WSNs monitor physical conditions, such as temperature, sound, and pressure. Modern networks are bi-directional, both collecting data and enabling control of sensor activity. The development of these networks was motivated by military applications such as battlefield surveillance. Such networks are used in industrial and consumer applications, such as industrial process monitoring and control and machine health monitoring and agriculture. A WSN is built of "nodes" – from a few to hundreds or thousands, where each node is connected to other sensors. Each such node typically has several parts: a radio transceiver with an internal antenna or connection to an external antenna, a microcontroller, an electronic circuit for interfacing with the sensors and an energy source, usually a battery or an embedded form of energy harvesting. A sensor node might vary in size from a shoebox to (theoretically) a grain of dust, although microscopic dimensions have yet to be realized. Sensor node cost is similarly variable, ranging from a few to hundreds of dollars, depending on node sophistication.

Size and cost constraints constrain resources such as energy, memory, computational speed and communications bandwidth. The topology of a WSN can vary from a simple star network to an advanced multi-hop wireless mesh network. Propagation can employ routing or flooding. In computer science and telecommunications, wireless sensor networks are an active research area supporting many workshops and conferences, including the International Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNetS), International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), SenSys, MobiCom and European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN). As of 2010, wireless sensor networks had deployed approximately 120 million remote units worldwide.

Wireless sensor networks also are used for the collection of data for monitoring of environmental information. This can be as simple as monitoring the temperature in a fridge or the level of water in overflow tanks in nuclear power plants. The statistical information can then be used to show how systems have been working. The advantage of WSNs over conventional loggers is the "live" data feed that is possible.

WSN can be used to monitor the condition of civil infrastructure and related geo-physical processes close to real time, and over long periods through data logging, using appropriately interfaced sensors. Power consumption constraints for nodes using batteries or energy harvesting. Examples of suppliers are ReVibe Energy and Perpetuum Ability to cope with node failures (resilience) Some mobility of nodes (for highly mobile nodes see MWSNs) Heterogeneity of nodes Homogeneity of nodes Scalability to large scale of deployment Ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions Ease of use Cross-layer optimization Cross-layer is becoming an important studying area for wireless communications. In addition, the traditional layered approach presents three main problems: Figure 1: Black hole attack | PPTX Traditional layered approach cannot share different information among different layers, which leads to each layer not having complete information. The traditional layered approach cannot guarantee the optimization of the entire network. The traditional layered approach does not have the ability to adapt to the environmental change. Because of the interference between the different users, access conflicts, fading, and the change of environment in the wireless sensor networks, traditional layered approach for wired networks is not applicable to wireless networks. So the cross-layer can be used to make the optimal modulation to improve the transmission performance, such as data rate, energy efficiency, quality of service (QoS), etc.

Sensor nodes can be imagined as small computers which are extremely basic in terms of their interfaces and their components. They usually consist of a processing unit with limited computational power and limited memory, sensors or MEMS (including specific conditioning circuitry), a communication device (usually radio transceivers or alternatively optical), and a power source usually in the form of a battery. Other possible inclusions are energy harvesting modules, secondary ASICs, and possibly secondary communication interface (e.g. RS-232 or USB). The base stations are one or more components of the WSN with much more computational, energy and communication resources. They act as a gateway between sensor nodes and the end user as they typically forward data from the WSN on to a server. Other special components in routing based networks are routers, designed to compute, calculate and distribute the routing tables.

One major challenge in a WSN is to produce low cost and tiny sensor nodes. There are an increasing number of small companies producing WSN hardware and the commercial situation can be compared to home computing in the 1970s. Many of the nodes are still in the research and development stage, particularly their software. Also inherent to sensor network adoption is the use of very low power methods for radio communication and data acquisition. In many applications, a WSN communicates with a local area network or wide area network through a gateway. The Gateway acts as a bridge between the WSN and the other network. This enables data to be stored and processed by devices with more resources, for example, in a remotely located server. A wireless wide area network used primarily for low-power devices is known as a Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN).

2. System Architecture & Core Working Principles Increased lifespan Robustness and fault tolerance Self-configuration Lifetime maximization: Energy/Power Consumption of the sensing device should be minimized and sensor nodes should be energy efficient since their limited energy resource determines their lifetime. To conserve power, wireless sensor nodes normally power off both the radio transmitter and the radio receiver when not in use.

Sensor nodes are prone to failure, For better collection of data, To provide nodes with backup in case of failure of the central node. There is also no centralised body to allocate the resources and they have to be self organized. As for the distributed filtering over distributed sensor network. the general setup is to observe the underlying process through a group of sensors organized according to a given network topology, which renders the individual observer estimates the system state based not only on its own measurement but also on its neighbors'.

The data gathered from wireless sensor networks is usually saved in the form of numerical data in a central base station. Additionally, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is specifying standards for interoperability interfaces and metadata encodings that enable real time integration of heterogeneous sensor webs into the Internet, allowing any individual to monitor or control wireless sensor networks through a web browser.

Wireless security is the prevention of unauthorized access or damage to computers or data using Wireless networks, which include Wi-Fi networks. The term may also refer to protecting the wireless network itself from adversaries seeking to damage the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the network. The most common type is Wi-Fi security, which includes Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WEP is an old IEEE 802.11 standard from 1997. It is a notoriously weak security standard: the password it uses can often be cracked in a few minutes with a basic laptop computer and widely available software tools. WEP was superseded in 2003 by WPA, a quick alternative at the time to improve security over WEP. The current standard is WPA2; some hardware cannot support WPA2 without a firmware upgrade or replacement.

WPA2 uses an encryption device that encrypts the network with a 256-bit key; the longer key length improves security over WEP. Enterprises often enforce security using a certificate-based system to authenticate the connecting device, following the standard 802.11X. In January 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced WPA3 as a replacement for WPA2. Certification began in June 2018, and WPA3 support has been mandatory for devices that bear the "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™" logo since July 2020.

Many laptop computers have wireless cards pre-installed. The ability to enter a network while mobile has great benefits. However, wireless networking is prone to some security issues. Hackers have found wireless networks relatively easy to break into, and even use wireless technology to hack into wired networks. As a result, it is very important that enterprises define effective wireless security policies that guard against unauthorized access to important resources. Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems (WIPS) or Wireless Intrusion Detection Systems (WIDS) are commonly used to enforce wireless security policies.

Figure 2: Figure 1 from Black Hole Attack Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks ... The risks to users of wireless technology have increased as the service has become more popular. There were relatively few dangers when wireless technology was first introduced. Hackers had not yet had time to latch on to the new technology, and wireless networks were not commonly found in the workplace. However, there are many security risks associated with the current wireless protocols and encryption methods, and in the carelessness and ignorance that exists at the user and corporate IT level. Hacking methods have become much more sophisticated and innovative with wireless access. Hacking has also become much easier and more accessible with easy-to-use Windows- or Linux-based tools being made available on the web at no charge. Some organizations that have no wireless access points installed do not feel that they need to address wireless security concerns. In-Stat MDR and META Group have estimated that 95% of all corporate laptop computers that were planned to be purchased in 2005 were equipped with wireless cards. Issues can arise in a supposedly non-wireless organization when a wireless laptop is plugged into the corporate network. A hacker could sit out in the parking lot and gather information from it through laptops and/or other devices, or even break in through this wireless card–equipped laptop and gain access to the wired network.

Wireless security is another aspect of computer security. Organizations may be particularly vulnerable to security breaches caused by rogue access points. If an employee adds a wireless interface to an unsecured port of a system, they may create a breach in network security that would allow access to confidential materials. Countermeasures like disabling open switchports during switch configuration and VLAN configuration to limit network access are available to protect the network and the information it contains, but such countermeasures must be applied uniformly to all network devices.

3. Software Implementation, Frameworks & Protocols A man-in-the-middle attacker entices computers to log into a computer that is set up as a soft AP (Access Point). Once this is done, the hacker connects to a real access point through another wireless card offering a steady flow of traffic through the transparent hacking computer to the real network. The hacker can then sniff the traffic. One type of man-in-the-middle attack relies on security faults in challenge and handshake protocols to execute a "de-authentication attack". This attack forces AP-connected computers to drop their connections and reconnect with the hacker's soft AP (disconnects the user from the modem so they have to connect again using their password which one can extract from the recording of the event).

Man-in-the-middle attacks are enhanced by software such as LANjack and AirJack which automate multiple steps of the process, meaning what once required some skill can now be done by script kiddies. Hotspots are particularly vulnerable to any attack since there is little to no security on these networks. For closed networks (like home users and organizations) the most common way is to configure access restrictions in the access points. Those restrictions may include encryption and checks on MAC address. Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems can provide wireless LAN security in this network model. For commercial providers, hotspots, and large organizations, the preferred solution is often to have an open and unencrypted, but completely isolated wireless network. The users will at first have no access to the Internet nor to any local network resources. Commercial providers usually forward all web traffic to a captive portal which provides for payment and/or authorization. Another solution is to require the users to connect securely to a privileged network using VPN. Wireless networks are less secure than wired ones; in many offices intruders can easily visit and hook up their own computer to the wired network without problems, gaining access to the network, and it is also often possible for remote intruders to gain access to the network through backdoors like Back Orifice. One general solution may be end-to-end encryption, with independent authentication on all resources that should not be available to the public. There is no ready-designed system to prevent fraudulent usage of wireless communication or to protect data and functions with wirelessly communicating computers and other entities. However, there is a system of qualifying the taken measures as a whole according to a common understanding of what shall be seen as state of the art. The system of qualifying is an international consensus as specified in ISO/IEC 15408.

A Wireless Intrusion Prevention System (WIPS) is a concept for the most robust way to counteract wireless security risks. However such a WIPS does not exist as a ready-designed solution to implement as a software package. A WIPS is typically implemented as an overlay to an existing Wireless LAN infrastructure, although it may be deployed standalone to enforce no-wireless policies within an organization. WIPS is considered so important to wireless security that in July 2009, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council published wireless guidelines for PCI DSS recommending the use of WIPS to automate wireless scanning and protection for large organizations. Several WIPS vendors were established in the early 2000s. AirDefense was founded in 2001 and later acquired by Motorola in 2008. Mojo Networks was founded in 2004 and later acquired by Arista Networks in 2018. With the rapid growth of Wireless LANs, WIPS became an important part of every organization's security posture.

A simple but ineffective method to attempt to secure a wireless network is to hide the SSID (Service Set Identifier). This provides very little protection against anything but the most casual intrusion efforts. Figure 3: Forensic Analysis of Blackhole Attack in Wireless Sensor Networks ... IEEE 802.1X is the IEEE Standard authentication mechanism for devices wishing to attach to a Wireless LAN.

The Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption standard was the original encryption standard for wireless, but since 2004 with the ratification WPA2 the IEEE has declared it "deprecated", and while often supported, it is seldom or never the default on modern equipment. Concerns were raised about its security as early as 2001, dramatically demonstrated in 2005 by the FBI, yet in 2007 T.J. Maxx admitted a massive security breach due in part to a reliance on WEP and the Payment Card Industry took until 2008 to prohibit its use – and even then allowed existing use to continue until June 2010.

4. Practical Deployment, Analysis & Case Studies The Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2) security protocols were later created to address the problems with WEP. If a weak password, such as a dictionary word or short character string is used, WPA and WPA2 can be cracked. Using a long enough random password (e.g. 14 random letters) or passphrase (e.g. 5 randomly chosen words) makes pre-shared key WPA virtually uncrackable. The second generation of the WPA security protocol (WPA2) is based on the final IEEE 802.11i amendment to the 802.11 standard and is eligible for FIPS 140-2 compliance. With all those encryption schemes, any client in the network that knows the keys can read all the traffic. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a software/firmware improvement over WEP. All regular WLAN equipment that worked with WEP are able to be simply upgraded and no new equipment needs to be bought. WPA is a trimmed-down version of the 802.11i security standard that was developed by the IEEE 802.11 to replace WEP. The TKIP encryption algorithm was developed for WPA to provide improvements to WEP that could be fielded as firmware upgrades to existing 802.11 devices. The WPA profile also provides optional support for the AES-CCMP algorithm that is the preferred algorithm in 802.11i and WPA2. WPA Enterprise provides RADIUS based authentication using 802.1X. WPA Personal uses a pre-shared Shared Key (PSK) to establish the security using an 8 to 63 character passphrase.

The PSK may also be entered as a 64-character hexadecimal string. Weak PSK passphrases can be broken using off-line dictionary attacks by capturing the messages in the four-way exchange when the client reconnects after being deauthenticated. Wireless suites such as aircrack-ng can crack a weak passphrase in less than a minute. Other WEP/WPA crackers are AirSnort and Auditor Security Collection. Still, WPA Personal is secure when used with ‘good’ passphrases or a full 64-character hexadecimal key. There was information, however, that Erik Tews (the man who created the fragmentation attack against WEP) was going to reveal a way of breaking the WPA TKIP implementation at Tokyo's PacSec security conference in November 2008, cracking the encryption on a packet in 12 to 15 minutes. Still, the announcement of this 'crack' was somewhat overblown by the media, because as of August, 2009, the best attack on WPA (the Beck-Tews attack) is only partially successful in that it only works on short data packets, it cannot decipher the WPA key, and it requires very specific WPA implementations in order to work.

This stands for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol and the acronym is pronounced as tee-kip. This is part of the IEEE 802.11i standard. TKIP implements per-packet key mixing with a re-keying system and also provides a message integrity check. These avoid the problems of WEP. This stands for the Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol. This protocol is based on 802.1X and helps minimize the original security flaws by using WEP and a sophisticated key management system. This EAP version is safer than EAP-MD5.

This also uses MAC address authentication. LEAP is not secure; THC-LeapCracker can be used to break Cisco's version of LEAP and be used against computers connected to an access point in the form of a dictionary attack. Anwrap and asleap are other crackers capable of breaking LEAP. PEAP This stands for Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol. This protocol allows for a secure transport of data, passwords, and encryption keys without the need for a certificate server. This was developed by Cisco, Microsoft, and RSA Security.

Other EAPs There are other types of Extensible Authentication Protocol implementations that are based on the EAP framework. The framework that was established supports existing EAP types as well as future authentication methods. EAP-TLS offers very good protection because of its mutual authentication. Both the client and the network are authenticated using certificates and per-session WEP keys. EAP-FAST also offers good protection. EAP-TTLS is another alternative made by Certicom and Funk Software. It is more convenient as one does not need to distribute certificates to users, yet offers slightly less protection than EAP-TLS.

WPA2 is a WiFi Alliance-branded version of the final 802.11i standard. The primary enhancement over WPA is the inclusion of the AES-CCMP algorithm as a mandatory feature. Both WPA and WPA2 support EAP authentication methods using RADIUS servers and preshared key (PSK). The number of WPA and WPA2 networks are increasing, while the number of WEP networks are decreasing, because of the security vulnerabilities in WEP. WPA2 has been found to have at least one security vulnerability, nicknamed Hole196. The vulnerability uses the WPA2 Group Temporal Key (GTK), which is a shared key among all users of the same BSSID, to launch attacks on other users of the same BSSID. It is named after page 196 of the IEEE 802.11i specification, where the vulnerability is discussed. In order for this exploit to be performed, the GTK must be known by the attacker.

This stands for WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure. This is a wireless security standard defined by the Chinese government. 5. Performance Evaluation & Extended Technical Observations With an increasing number of mobile devices with 802.1X interfaces, security of such mobile devices becomes a concern.

While open standards such as Kismet are targeted towards securing laptops, access point solutions should extend towards covering mobile devices also. Host-based solutions for mobile handsets and PDA's with 802.1X interface. Security within mobile devices falls under three categories: Protecting against ad hoc networks Connecting to rogue access points Mutual authentication schemes such as WPA2 as described above Wireless IPS solutions now offer wireless security for mobile devices. Mobile patient monitoring devices are becoming an integral part of the healthcare industry and these devices will eventually become the method of choice for accessing and implementing health checks for patients located in remote areas. For these types of patient monitoring systems, security and reliability are critical because they can influence the condition of patients and could leave medical professionals in the dark about the condition of the patient if compromised.

Aradial RADIUS Server Cisco Secure Access Control Software freeRADIUS (open-source) Funk Software Steel Belted RADIUS (Odyssey) Microsoft Internet Authentication Service Meetinghouse Data EAGIS SkyFriendz (free cloud solution based on freeRADIUS) Client software comes built-in with Windows XP and may be integrated into other OS's using any of the following software: AEGIS-client Cisco ACU-client Intel PROSet/Wireless Software Odyssey client Xsupplicant (open1X)-project Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) is an AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) protocol used for remote network access. RADIUS, developed in 1991, was originally proprietary but then published in 1997 under ISOC documents RFC 2138 and RFC 2139. The idea is to have an inside server act as a gatekeeper by verifying identities through a username and password that is already pre-determined by the user. A RADIUS server can also be configured to enforce user policies and restrictions as well as record accounting information such as connection time for purposes such as billing.

The wireless network is after all confined to a small geographical area. A computer connected to the Internet and having improper configurations or other security problems can be exploited by anyone from anywhere in the world, while only clients in a small geographical range can exploit an open wireless access point. Thus the exposure is low with an open wireless access point, and the risks with having an open wireless network are small. However, one should be aware that an open wireless router will give access to the local network, often including access to file shares and printers. The only way to keep communication truly secure is to use end-to-end encryption. For example, when accessing an internet bank, one would almost always use strong encryption from the web browser and all the way to the bank – thus it should not be risky to do banking over an unencrypted wireless network. The argument that anyone can sniff the traffic applies to wired networks too, where system administrators and possible hackers have access to the links and can read the traffic. Also, anyone knowing the keys for an encrypted wireless network can gain access to the data being transferred over the network. If services like file shares, access to printers etc. are available on the local net, it is advisable to have authentication (i.e. by password) for accessing it (one should never assume that the private network is not accessible from the outside). Correctly set up, it should be safe to allow access to the local network to outsiders. With the most popular encryption algorithms today, a sniffer will usually be able to compute the network key in a few minutes. It is very common to pay a fixed monthly fee for the Internet connection, and not for the traffic – thus extra traffic will not be detrimental. Where Internet connections are plentiful and cheap, freeloaders will seldom be a prominent nuisance. On the other hand, in some countries including Germany, persons providing an open access point may be made (partially) liable for any illegal activity conducted via this access point. Also, many contracts with ISPs specify that the connection may not be shared with other persons.

Harvested Online Documentation & Reference Sources • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless%20sensor%20network • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless%20security