Detection and Mitigation of Node Replication Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Wireless sensor networks are a collection of a number of tiny, low-cost, and resource-constrained sensor nodes which are commonly not tamper proof. As a result, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are prone to a wide variety of physical attacks. In this paper, we deem a typical threat known as node replication attack or clone node attack, where an adversary creates its own low-cost sensor nodes called clone nodes and misinforms the network to acknowledge them as legitimate nodes. To instigate this attack, an adversary only needs to physically capture one node, and after collecting all secret credentials (ID, cryptographic keys, etc.), an adversary replicates the sensor node and deploys one or more clones of the compromised node into the network at strategic positions, damaging the whole network by carrying out many internal attacks. Detecting the node replication attack has become an imperative research topic in sensor network security, and designing detection schemes against node replication attack involves different threatening issues and challenges. In this survey, we have classified the existing detection schemes and comprehensively explore various proposals in each category. We will also take a glance at some technical details and comparisons so as to demonstrate limitations of the existent detections as well as effective contributions.