Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest due to the range of applications they enable. Unfortunately, WSNs are exposed to numerous security threats that can adversely affect the success of important applications. Securing WSNs is challenging due to their unique nature as an application and a network, and due to their limited capabilities. In this paper, we argue that the WSN security research generally considers mechanisms that are modeled after and evaluated against abstract applications and WSN organizations. Instead, we propose that an effective solution for WSNs must be sensitive to the application and infrastructure. We propose an application-specific security context as the combination of a potential attacker's motivation and the WSN vulnerability. The vulnerability is a function of factors such as the sensor field, the WSN infrastructure, the application, protocols and system software, as well the accessibility and the observability of the WSN. To reduce the vulnerability, we argue that WSN design must balance traditional objectives such as energy efficiency, cost, and application level performance with security to a degree proportional to the attacker's motivation. We illustrate this argument via two example applications.
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest due to the wide range of applications they enable. Unfortunately, WSNs are exposed to numerous security threats that can adversely affect the success of important applications. Securing WSNs is challenging due to their limited capabilities and the unique nature of the network and applications. In this paper, we argue that the WSN security research generally considers mechanisms that are modeled after and evaluated against abstract applications and WSN organizations. Instead, we propose that the solution for WSN security must be sensitive to the application and infrastructure. Specifically, we formulate a new notion of an application-specific security context as the combination of a potential attacker's motivation and the WSN vulnerability. The vulnerability is a function of factors such as the sensor field, WSN infrastructure, application, protocols, system software, accessibility, and the observability of the WSN. To reduce the vulnerability, we argue that WSN design must balance security with traditional objectives such as the cost, energy efficiency, and application level performance to a degree proportional to the attacker's motivation. We illustrate this argument via four example applications. Overall, our work can be considered a basis to derive more grounded and realistic assumptions for WSN security and develop cost-effective security solutions to handle application-specific vulnerabilities in WSNs.
This special issue brings together eight contributions on proposals for the resources management and mobility management in wireless networks, from different viewpoints, including QoS support, dynamic channel allocation, fault-tolerance, power saving and power efficiency, clustering and security issues. The papers have been selected from a total of more than 40 submitted papers, due to their originality and contribution to the field of wireless communications and mobile computing, with a particular emphasis on resources and mobility management in wireless networks -the theme of this special issue.The paper 'An efficient distributed fault-tolerant protocol for dynamic channel allocation' by Azzedine Boukerche, Tingxue Huang and Kaouther Abrougui, provides a proposal for a dynamic and distributed channel allocation scheme which incorporates the advantages of fault-tolerance and mobility support, and its performance evaluation. The paper 'Mitigating the impact of node mobility on ad hoc clustering' by Rituparna Ghosh and Stefano Basagni, evaluates the impact of different node mobility assumptions and provides some guidelines for improving the effectiveness and overhead reduction of clustering solutions in wireless ad hoc network scenarios. The paper 'Transmission power and duration-aware playout control for packetized media streaming over wireless links' by Yan Li and Nickolas Bambos illustrates and analyzes resource-saving solutions for transmission power control and playout buffer control to support QoS for media streaming over wireless links. The paper 'Energy and connectivity performance of routing groups in multi-radio multi-hop networks' by Michele Rossi, Leonardo Badia, Paolo Giacon and Michele Zorzi, provides a modelling and analysis of the in-network aggregation of wireless devices into groups, exploiting the connectivity potential of multiple radios to simplify the routing management in multi-hop wireless networks. The paper 'MUSAQ: a multimedia session-aware QoS provisioning scheme for cellular networks' by Mona El-Kadi Rizvi and Stephan Olariu, provides a QoS management scheme that reduces the self-contention of multiple streams composing a multimedia communication session, by exploiting the prioritization made possible by the knowledge of the relationships between competing flows in a multimedia session. The paper 'A modified hopfield network for mobility management' by Javid Taheri and Albert Y. Zomaya, proposes a novel and efficient approach based on heuristics and neural network techniques for optimizing the location management solutions of mobile devices. The paper 'An application-driven approach to designing secure wireless sensor networks' by Eric Sabbah, Kyoung-Don Kang, Nael Abu-Ghazaleh, Adnan Majeed and Ke Liu, introduces some concepts and guidelines for realizing a dynamically reconfigurable application-
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