Software-Based Remote Code Attestation in Wireless Sensor Network

Sensor nodes are usually vulnerable to be compromised due to their unattended deployment. The low cost requirement of the sensor node precludes using an expensive tamper resistant hardware for sensor physical protection. Thus, the adversary can reprogram the compromised sensors and deviates sensor network functionality. In this paper, we propose two simple software-based remote code attestation schemes for different WSN criterion. Our schemes use different independent memory noise filling techniques called pre-deployment and post-deployment noise filling, and also different communication protocols for attestation purpose. The protocols are well-suited for wireless sensor networks, where external factors, such as channel collision, result in network delay. Hence, the success of our schemes of attestation does not depend on the accurate measurement of the execution time, which is the main drawback of previously proposed wireless sensor network attestation schemes.