Study of node capture attack detection and prevention techniques in a wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks are emerging as one of the dominant technologies in the communication and computing world. These are known to be composed of hundreds, and potentially thousands of connected sensor nodes with several distinguished characteristics, used for gathering the essential data from unattended or hostile environments. Being deployed in the areas such as armed forces for surveillance purposes, in the industries for control applications and monitoring and for civilians in environmental monitoring, traffic control, healthcare and research, these networks are more vulnerable to various security attacks and thus requires highly capable defence against them. The network works on the basis of a large number of trusts among themselves thus making it necessary to ensure the security of the communication links for secure data exchange between them. So, this paper presents major security challenges and attacks encountered in wireless sensor networks and the possible detection and prevention mechanisms available.