Securing Cluster Head Selection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor network routing protocols are prone to various attacks as these protocols mainly provide the function of routing data towards the sink. LEACH is a one of the routing protocol used for clustered implementation of wireless sensor network with Received Signal Strength based dynamic selection of Cluster Heads. But, as with other routing protocols, LEACH is also prone to HELLO flood attack when the malicious sensor node becomes the Cluster Head. Cryptographic and non-cryptographic approaches to detect the presence of HELLO flood attack also exist but they lack efficiency in some way. In this paper, an efficient protocol is proposed for the detection and prevention of HELLO Flood attack in wireless sensor network. Cluster heads are vulnerable to various malicious attacks and this greatly affects the performance of the wireless sensor network. Cryptographic approaches to prevent this attack are not so helpful though some non-cryptographic methods to detect the HELLO Flood attack also exist but they are not too efficient as they result in large test packet overhead.