Low Complexity Signed Response Based Sybil Attack Detection Mechanism in Wireless Sensor Networks

Security is always a major concern in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Identity based attacks such as spoofing and sybil not only compromise the network but also slow down its performance. This paper proposes a low complexity sybil attack detection scheme, that is, based on signed response (SRES) authentication mechanism developed for Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications. A probabilistic model is presented which analyzes the proposed authentication mechanism for its probability of sybil attack. The paper also presents a simulation based comparative analysis of the existing sybil attack schemes with respect to the proposed scheme. It is observed that the proposed sybil detection scheme exhibits lesser computational cost and power consumption as compared to the existing schemes for the same sybil detection performance.