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Evolution of Social IoT World
between the source and the base station. An empirical study by Guicheng and Liu (2011)
showed that multi-hop transmission of data demands different nodes to take diverse
traffic loads. The required data are collected by the wireless sensors through collaboration among the various nodes, which is then sent to the sink node for directed routing toward the base station. Some of the most prominent security issues plaguing the
entire system arise out of the security issues for information relay from one device to
another. According to Singla and Sachdeva (2013), the oppressive operations that can be
performed in a WSN are due to the denial of service (DoS). This prevention of accessibility of information to legitimate users by unknown intruders can take place at different
layers of a network.
5.5.1.2.1 DoS Attack: Physical Layer (WSN)
The physical layer of the WSN is attacked mainly through Jamming and Node Tempering.
Jamming stems in the communication channel between the nodes (things) and thus prevents communication between nodes. Node tempering refers to the physical tempering of
any node (thing) to extract sensitive information.
5.5.1.2.2 DoS Attack: Link Layer (WSN)
DoS attack in this layer is due to Collision, Unfairness and Battery Exhaustion. The Collisiontype DoS attack is initiated when two nodes simultaneously transmit data packets on the
same frequency channel. It results in small changes in the packet identifying a mismatch at
the receiving end. It further leads to discarding of the infected data packet for re-transmission. Unfairness is a repeated collision-based attack. The DoS attack for battery exhaustion
is caused by a large number of requests (requests to send) for unnecessary transmission
over the channel. This leads to high traffic congestion in the channel and the efficiency of
node accessibility reduces drastically.
5.5.1.2.3 DoS Attack: Network Layer (WSN)
The DoS attacker tries to disrupt while routing which is the main function of this layer
due to Spoofing, Homing, Sybil, Wormhole, Hello Flood, Acknowledgment flooding,
and Selective forwarding. Spoofing occurs due to replaying and misdirection of traffic.
Homing is the type of attack, where the traffic is searched for cluster heads and key managers which have the capability to shut down the entire network. In a Sybil attack, the
attacker replicates a single node and presents it with multiple identities to other nodes.
Wormhole attack causes relocation of bits of data from its original position in the network. Hello flood attack causes high traffic in channels by congesting the channel with an
unusually high number of useless messages. In the Acknowledgment Flooding, a malicious
node spoofs the acknowledgments and provides false information to the neighboring
destination nodes. In Selective forwarding, a compromised node only sends to few nodes
instead of all the nodes.
5.5.1.2.4 DoS Attack: Transport Layer (WSSN)
Flooding and de-synchronization are the two types of attacks observed in the transport
layer of WSSN. Flooding refers to the deliberate congestion of communication channels by
the relay of unnecessary messages in high traffic. In de-synchronization attack, fake messages are created at one or both endpoints requesting retransmissions for correction of
non-existent error. This results in loss of energy in one or both the endpoints in carrying
out the spoofed instructions.
Evolution of Social IoT World
between the source and the base station. An empirical study by Guicheng and Liu (2011)
showed that multi-hop transmission of data demands different nodes to take diverse
traffic loads. The required data are collected by the wireless sensors through collaboration among the various nodes, which is then sent to the sink node for directed routing toward the base station. Some of the most prominent security issues plaguing the
entire system arise out of the security issues for information relay from one device to
another. According to Singla and Sachdeva (2013), the oppressive operations that can be
performed in a WSN are due to the denial of service (DoS). This prevention of accessibility of information to legitimate users by unknown intruders can take place at different
layers of a network.
5.5.1.2.1 DoS Attack: Physical Layer (WSN)
The physical layer of the WSN is attacked mainly through Jamming and Node Tempering.
Jamming stems in the communication channel between the nodes (things) and thus prevents communication between nodes. Node tempering refers to the physical tempering of
any node (thing) to extract sensitive information.
5.5.1.2.2 DoS Attack: Link Layer (WSN)
DoS attack in this layer is due to Collision, Unfairness and Battery Exhaustion. The Collisiontype DoS attack is initiated when two nodes simultaneously transmit data packets on the
same frequency channel. It results in small changes in the packet identifying a mismatch at
the receiving end. It further leads to discarding of the infected data packet for re-transmission. Unfairness is a repeated collision-based attack. The DoS attack for battery exhaustion
is caused by a large number of requests (requests to send) for unnecessary transmission
over the channel. This leads to high traffic congestion in the channel and the efficiency of
node accessibility reduces drastically.
5.5.1.2.3 DoS Attack: Network Layer (WSN)
The DoS attacker tries to disrupt while routing which is the main function of this layer
due to Spoofing, Homing, Sybil, Wormhole, Hello Flood, Acknowledgment flooding,
and Selective forwarding. Spoofing occurs due to replaying and misdirection of traffic.
Homing is the type of attack, where the traffic is searched for cluster heads and key managers which have the capability to shut down the entire network. In a Sybil attack, the
attacker replicates a single node and presents it with multiple identities to other nodes.
Wormhole attack causes relocation of bits of data from its original position in the network. Hello flood attack causes high traffic in channels by congesting the channel with an
unusually high number of useless messages. In the Acknowledgment Flooding, a malicious
node spoofs the acknowledgments and provides false information to the neighboring
destination nodes. In Selective forwarding, a compromised node only sends to few nodes
instead of all the nodes.
5.5.1.2.4 DoS Attack: Transport Layer (WSSN)
Flooding and de-synchronization are the two types of attacks observed in the transport
layer of WSSN. Flooding refers to the deliberate congestion of communication channels by
the relay of unnecessary messages in high traffic. In de-synchronization attack, fake messages are created at one or both endpoints requesting retransmissions for correction of
non-existent error. This results in loss of energy in one or both the endpoints in carrying
out the spoofed instructions.
