MN603: Analysis of Routing Protocols in Wireless Networks and Security

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of routing protocols in wireless networks, specifically focusing on LEACH and PEGASIS. It begins by outlining the routing mechanisms of these protocols, including their energy consumption characteristics, advantages, and limitations. The report then delves into the critical security issues associated with these protocols, detailing various attacks such as sinkhole, blackhole, selective forwarding, HELLO flood, and Sybil attacks. For each attack, the report explains the attack mechanism and its potential impact on network performance. Furthermore, the report discusses potential countermeasures to mitigate these attacks, focusing on identity verification and secure communication protocols. A comparative analysis of the performance of the routing protocols is also included, evaluating their efficiency in terms of energy consumption and data transmission. Overall, the report provides valuable insights into the security challenges and performance considerations of routing protocols in wireless networks, making it a useful resource for students studying this topic.

Running head: Security in Computing and IT
Wireless Networks protocols and Security
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors note

1SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Part A...............................................................................................................................................2
Routing Mechanisms.......................................................................................................2
Reduced energy consumption..........................................................................................3
Advantages and limitations..............................................................................................3
Part B...............................................................................................................................................5
Security issues of the routing protocols...........................................................................5
Attacks on the routing protocols......................................................................................5
Countermeasure for the attacks.......................................................................................7
Comparative analysis on performance of the routing protocols......................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

2SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
Introduction
In case of wireless sensor networks there are numerous nodes are deployed within a
network that depends on a specific protocol to operate and collect information from surrounding
area or nodes [8]. All these gathered data are transmitted to some specific base station in that will
process it and present at the edge of network. It Acts as the gateway to sensor networks as well
as external environment. In the different sections of this report different aspects of PEGASIS and
LEACH protocol is discussed in brief.
Part A
Routing Mechanisms
LEACH: In wireless sensor networks the LEACH is considered as adaptive and self-
organizing protocol that depends on the cluster mechanism. In this protocol the sensor nodes
organize themselves and divides some finite number of nodes in local clusters. After this a
cluster head is determined by the cluster members [6]. It is done in order to reduce the energy
consumption by the individual nodes as well as minimize the data aggregation process which
consequently reduces the number of messages that are delivered to ultimately to base station.
This in turn increases lifetime of the wireless sensor network.
PEGASIS: In Power Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems or PEGASIS
each node in the network communicates with the closest neighbor nodes. After this the selected
node takes turn in order to transmit the received data to finally to the base station [1]. In this way
it becomes easy to reduce the required amount of energy for every round of data transmission.

3SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
Using greedy algorithm, the nodes are organized to form a chain, after that base station
can compute this chain and broadcast it to all the sensor nodes. The PEGASIS saves energy at
multiple stages and thus considered as efficient compared to the LEACH.
Reduced energy consumption
For LEACH as the in a certain cluster inside the network the CH or Cluster head collects
data that needs to be transmitted from cluster members thus the required energy for transmission
is reduced. Furthermore, in order to reduce different inter-cluster or intra-cluster message
collisions this protocol depends on the TDMA as well as CDMA (code-division multiple access)
access mechanism [3]. In this protocol the decision about elevating any node as the cluster head
is dynamic and carried out in time interval. In the similar manner the data collection from the
node is also performed periodically that in turn reduces the energy required for redundant data
transmission.
In case of PEGASIS in the first stage of local data gathering compared to the LEACH
the distances between the cluster head and ordinary nodes as well as to the base station can be
longer that requires extra amount of energy in LEACH but transmitting to the closest node
reduces the requirement of the energy to different cluster heads [4]. Furthermore, as only
single node transmits data to base station after a round compared to multiple Cluster heads
leading to energy efficiency.
Advantages and limitations
Advantages and limitations of LEACH
1.As the LEACH depends on the cluster model and Cluster Heads are responsible for
aggregation of the complete data from the nodes thus helpful in reducing the network traffic.

4SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
2. From different nodes in the network only single hop routing is required to cluster head
which in turn results in energy efficient routing.
Limitations
1. In case of LEACH protocol it is not possible to determine the number of cluster heads
inside a wireless network.
2. One of the biggest limitations of LEACH is whenever a Cluster head dies for some
reason then the cluster inside the wireless network becomes useless as gathered data by the
Cluster head would not be sent to the Base station.
Advantages and limitations PEGASIS
Advantages
Compared to the other protocols the transmission distance between the nodes is reduced
significantly [5].
As the nodes are selected only one time thus the energy dissipation becomes balanced
among the between all the nodes.
Limitations
Whenever a head node in the network is selected its energy level not considered at the time of
selection.
For the redundant transmission only one node is available thus leads to bottle neck.
Lack of scalability;

5SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
Part B
Security issues of the routing protocols
In these networks’ attacker may mounts multiple wireless nodes inside the network
having same identity at the different places. In order to do so, the attacker can use any of the two
methods for carrying out this attack.
In the first one, attacker captures and compromises one node from the existing network
and thereafter creates multiple clones of that node. Later on, the cloned nodes are mounted inside
the network at the different places.
In the second method, the attacker tries to generate some false identification details of a
node and makes clone of this node to mount in different positions of the wireless sensor network.
After the cloned nodes are placed inside the network it tries to generates false data in order to
disrupt the wireless sensor network through that false data.
Attacks on the routing protocols
Sinkhole Attacks: In this kind of attack, the attacker tries to attracts total network traffic
by compromising a node. In order achieve this the compromised node repeatedly broadcasts a
high amount of energy inside the network so that it can attract other nodes [5]. In time the
compromised node is able to collects all transmitted and lead to either dropping those collected
data packets, modification of the packets or partial transmission of the packets.
Blackhole attack: In Blackhole attack, the compromised or attacking node have more
initial energy compared to other nodes. Consequently, that node becomes cluster heads in first

6SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
rounds or even in the later rounds too. As the compromised node does not consume any energy
for data packet transmission thus its energy level remains same. Due to the high energy level the
becomes cluster head in almost all rounds, receives data from al the cluster members, aggregates
and later on drops all the data without forwarding them to the base station. Thus, leading to
reduced amount of data transmitted to the base station.
Selective Forwarding: In the Wireless sensor networks, the Multi-hop-based networks
are often relying upon the assumption that all the participating nodes in inside the network will
be forwarding the received messages towards the base station [1]. In case of the selective
forwarding, malicious or compromised nodes may not to forward certain data packets or simply
drops them in order to ensure that those packets are not propagated in the network any further.
HELLO flood attack: Most of the Wireless sensor networking protocols requires the
nodes in the network to broadcast initial HELLO packets in order to announce their presence to
their neighborhood nodes. Any node inside the network receiving such kind of HELLO packets
assumes that it is within range of the sender of the packet. This assumption for the neighborhood
nodes may be false as an attacker can broadcast routing or similar information with enough
transmission power can convince every node in some specific network that the attacker node is
its neighbor.
Such an example of attacks includes that, a compromised or attacker node is broadcasting
very high-quality route towards the base station. This may lead to the large number of nodes
inside the network to use this route in order to send the packets. In this scenario the nodes which
are adequately far away from the attacker node will be sending the data packets to nowhere and
finally lost.

7SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
Sybil Attacks: In this type of attack, a single node inside the network broadcasts multiple
identities about it to other nodes. Through the Sybil attack, an attacker can meaningfully reduce
effectiveness of ay kind of fault-tolerant schemes in place inside the network. This includes
distributed storage, multipath routing of the data packets, topology maintenance and so on. Again
in case of the location aware routing of the data, it often requires the sensor nodes to transmit the
coordinate information with neighborhood nodes in order to efficiently route geographically
addressed data packets that gets disrupted by this attack.
Countermeasure for the attacks
Any attacker can be able only be able to do compromise the identities of nodes inside
the network. Here, it can be stated that the use of globally shared key will allow the attacker in
order to masquerade sensor nodes. Therefore, it is important to verify the identities of the nodes
inside the network. In a traditional way this can be achieved by utilizing the public key
cryptography.
One possible solution for this is to have each node share a symmetric key with a confided
in base station. Two nodes inside the network would then be able to utilize a Needham-
Schroeder like convention to check each other’s identity to avoid the attacks and build up a
common key [4]. A couple of neighboring nodes can utilize the subsequent key to actualize a
confirmed, secured connection between them. So as to keep an insider from traverse around the
targeted network and building up imparted keys to each node in the system, the base station can
sensibly confine the quantity of neighbors a hub is permitted to have and send some specific
error message when a node surpasses it.

8SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
In this manner, when any node inside the network is compromised, then it is confined to
communicate with its neighborhood of the. It is not necessarily the case that nodes are prohibited
from sending messages to base stations or cluster heads that are numerous hops away, yet they
are confined from utilizing any node aside from their checked neighbors to do as such.
Furthermore, an attacker can even now utilize a wormhole to make a counterfeit connection
between two nodes in order to persuade them they are neighbors; however, the attacker would
not be able to have the option to listen stealthily on or adjust any future communications between
them.
For the HELO flood attacks are the least complex process to safeguard the nodes is to
confirm the bidirectionality of the connection before making significant move dependent on a
message got over that interface. Be that as it may, this countermeasure is less compelling when
an attacker has an exceptionally sensitive receiver and incredibly powerful transmitter. Such an
attacker can successfully make a wormhole to each hub inside scope of its
transmitter/beneficiary. Since the connections between these nodes and attackers are
bidirectional, the above methodology will improbably have the option to locally identify a
HELLO flood attack. One potential answer for this issue is for each node to verify every one of
its neighbors with a character confirmation convention utilizing a confided in base station.
Comparative analysis on performance of the routing protocols
As the LEACH protocol utilizes the clustering method in order to transmit data from
the cluster members, to the cluster head and finally to the base station and then data is advanced
to the user. Thinking about this structure, there is just a single router that transmits data between
the nodes in the network and the BS. In LEACH protocol which comprises of a Master Cluster
Head as well [4]. It is expected that the channel between the Source hub and CH is not lossy, so

9SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
there is no loss of data. Henceforth, it can be ke a derivation that the LEACH convention is
Single Hop in nature. In case of the Energy Consumption, as discussed prior, it continues
Rotating the Cluster Heads, henceforth making the energy utilization disseminated between the
nodes and not simply on the Cluster Head.
In case of the PEGASIS protocol even though there is a single Leader Node , despite the
fact that data gets carried from all the nodes through the chain, in this way to arrive at the goal
the base station, the information from end nodes bounces across n-l number of hubs in order to
arrive at the Destination [5]. For Data Aggregation the PEGASIS protocol utilizes the token-
based systems, consequently the jump or hop counts to reach the base stations becomes higher.
Since this protocol is shaping a chain in this manner and thus leads to lot higher Hop Count when
contrasted with other various protocols.
Conclusion
From the above analysis of the wireless sensor network protocols it is found that the in
case of PEGASIS distance between the nodes, transmitting data to each other is very low.
compared to the cluster-based protocols data received by each node in PEGASIS is at most two
that reduces the overhead handled by the head node. Data aggregation is managed by every node,
thus instead of the multiple nodes communicating to the base station in LEACH the PEGASIS is
better as only single node communicates with the Base station leading to energy efficient
operation.

10SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
References
[1]F. Naz, "Effect of multiple sink on the lifetime of multiple chain PEGASIS", Global Sci-Tech,
vol. 11, no. 1, p. 39, 2019. Available: 10.5958/2455-7110.2019.00006.5.
[2]"Improvement in Leach Protocol Using T-LEACH in WSN", International Journal of Science
and Research (IJSR), vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 353-355, 2016. Available: 10.21275/v5i6.nov164094.
[3]S. Srivastava and D. Grover, "An Optimized Technique for Chain Head Selection in Pegasis
Protocol for WSN", International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, vol. 6, no. 12,
pp. 109-112, 2018. Available: 10.26438/ijcse/v6i12.109112.
[4]"ENHANCEMENT OF LEACH PROTOCOL IN WSN", International Journal of Recent
Trends in Engineering and Research, pp. 161-165, 2018. Available:
10.23883/ijrter.conf.20171225.024.zevqi.
[5]D. Sethi and P. Pratim Bhattacharya, "Revised Multi-Chain PEGASIS for Wireless Sensor
Networks", International Journal of Sensors Wireless Communications and Control, vol. 6, no.
1, pp. 12-17, 2016. Available: 10.2174/2210327905666150914225227.
[6]"Investigation Of Leach Protocol And Hierarchical Routing Protocols Based On Clustering In
WSN", International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering and Research, pp. 1-9, 2018.
Available: 10.23883/ijrter.conf.20171216.001.fm11x.
[7]A. Beohar, P. Sahu and P. Yadav, "Modified Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy M-
LEACH Protocol For WSN", International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and
Development, vol. -2, no. -6, pp. 210-216, 2018. Available: 10.31142/ijtsrd18333.

11SECURITY IN COMPUTING AND IT
[8]A. Somauroo and V. Bassoo, "Energy-efficient genetic algorithm variants of PEGASIS for 3D
Wireless Sensor Networks", Applied Computing and Informatics, 2019. Available:
10.1016/j.aci.2019.07.002.