Dealing with the secure time synchronization and man-in-the-middle attacker in mobile sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are resource-constrained self-organizing networks that are often deployed in hostile and inaccessible environments in order to collect data. Benign system faults such as malfunctioning hardware, software glitches, and environmental hazards may impact overall system reliability but can often be mitigated by appropriate fault tolerance mechanisms. However, in an adversarial context, more subtle and difficult challenges to reliability can be faced and must be considered. This paper focuses the well-studied man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack problem where an attacker tampers with the characteristics of the network by mediating a link between legitimate nodes that does not have the properties required for correct network operation. This paper develops attack scenarios for unique network topologies, presents a timing and location-based analysis of MITM attack scenarios for each, and characterizes the limits of MITM detectability via timing analysis as a function of distance.