Dealing with Sinkhole Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of many small wireless sensor nodes which are capable of sensing data and sending it to base stations. WSNs face resource constraints including limitations on communication, power, memory capacity and computational power. Also, since they are frequently deployed in hostile environments and left unattended, they are vulnerable to several attacks such as sinkhole attacks. Sinkhole attacks occur when a compromised node attracts network traffic by advertising fake routing updates. This paper first describes the challenges in detecting sinkhole attacks in WSNs. This is followed by analyzing methods to detect and neutralize sinkholes.