Attack-Tolerant Time-Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks

—Achieving secure time-synchronization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a challenging, but very important problem that has not yet been addressed effectively. This paper proposes an Attack-tolerant Time-Synchronization Protocol (ATSP) in which sensor nodes cooperate to safeguard the timesynchronization service against malicious attacks. ATSP exploits the high temporal correlation existing among adjacent nodes in a WSN to achieve (1) adaptive management of the profile of each sensor’s normal behavior, (2) distributed, cooperative detection of falsified clock values advertised by attackers or compromised nodes, and (3) significant improvement of synchronization accuracy and stability by effectively compensating the clock drifts with the calibrated clock. To reduce the risk of losing time-synchronization due to attacks on the reference node, ATSP utilizes distributed, mutual synchronization and confines the impact of attacks to a local area (where attacks took place). Further...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Xin Hu, Taejoon Park, Kang G. Shin
• Keywords: ATSP, Communications, INFOCOM 2008, Sensor Nodes, Wireless Sensor Networks