VDM Roosta, T: Attacks and Defenses of Ubiquitous Sensor Network

Based on recent technological advances,the manufacturing of a large number of low cost wireless sensors became technically and economically feasible. Thousands of these sensors can be networked as a wireless network for many applications that require unattended,long-term operations. One of the critical challenges to making sensor networks more pervasive and secure is the severe resource constraints.This dissertation explores specific security issues associated with sensor networks through four related themes. First,a taxonomy of security attacks and countermeasures for sensor networks along with methodologies for evaluation and design of secure sensor networks is developed. The second theme explores the issue of insider attacks on fundamental services and applications in sensor networks. We look at the time synchronization service and the object tracking algorithm.Third theme deals with the security issues facing the applications that use sensor networks. The two important applications that we look at are: health care systems, and the process control systems.Fourth, we develop a game theoretic framework to analyze and build a distributed reputation mechanism for sensor networks.