A Game-Theoretic Response Strategy for Coordinator Attack in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The coordinator is a specific node that controls the whole network and has a significant impact on the performance in cooperative multihop ZigBee wireless sensor networks (ZWSNs). However, the malicious node attacks coordinator nodes in an effort to waste the resources and disrupt the operation of the network. Attacking leads to a failure of one round of communication between the source nodes and destination nodes. Coordinator selection is a technique that can considerably defend against attack and reduce the data delivery delay, and increase network performance of cooperative communications. In this paper, we propose an adaptive coordinator selection algorithm using game and fuzzy logic aiming at both minimizing the average number of hops and maximizing network lifetime. The proposed game model consists of two interrelated formulations: a stochastic game for dynamic defense and a best response policy using evolutionary game formulation for coordinator selection. The stable equilibrium best policy to response defense is obtained from this game model. It is shown that the proposed scheme can improve reliability and save energy during the network lifetime with respect to security.

Game theoretical model for information transmission in structure‐free wireless sensor networks

“…Another direction of game theoretic applications to WSNs is the use of evolutionary games. Some examples can be found in [24, 25]. In [24], the authors combined evolutionary game theory and fuzzy logic to countermeasure an attack scenario where the malicious node attacks coordinator nodes in order to waste their resources and disrupt the operation of the network.…”

“…Some examples can be found in [24, 25]. In [24], the authors combined evolutionary game theory and fuzzy logic to countermeasure an attack scenario where the malicious node attacks coordinator nodes in order to waste their resources and disrupt the operation of the network. In [25], the authors used evolutionary game theory and its underlying learning mechanism which is known as the replicator dynamics to propose an active defence model.…”

Markov Decision Processes With Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

“…Liu et al [134] studied the security issues of using centralized coordinator to manage WSNs. Specifically, attacking the coordinator node can severely degrade the network performance and throughput.…”

A Survey of Game Theoretic Approaches to Modelling Decision-Making in Information Warfare Scenarios

“…A number of studies reviewed by Al Skaif et al [79] fall under the category of personal hacker warfare [80,81]. Based on evolutionary game theory, [80] propose an active defense model to protect wireless sensor nodes from attackers.…”

“…Liu et al [81] consider the security issues that arise for centralized coordinator nodes in wireless sensor networks. In this study, the attackers are considered to be a kind of malicious nodes which aim to disrupt the performance of the coordinator nodes by strategic jamming attack.…”