IPASJ International Journal of Computer Science (IIJCS)

Web Site: http://www.ipasj.org/IIJCS/IIJCS.htm

Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
ISSN 2321-5992

A Publisher for Research Motivation ........

Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2014

A research on Selective Forwarding Attack in

WSNs
Apoorva Joshi1, Pragya Sanghi2, Richa Agrawal3
Assistant Professor, Vivekananda Institute of Technology(East), Jaipur

ABSTRACT
Wireless Sensor Network comprises of hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes to sense the environment collect data and send
these data to a central location known as Base Station or Sink. Sensor Networks are very useful in many application such as
military applications, environmental condition detection, whether prediction, measuring temperature, sound, wave, humidity
and so on. Each sensor node in Sensor Networks operates on battery. In many scenarios, it is very difficult to recharge or
replace battery of sensor nodes. So routing protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks should be as energy efficient as possible.
Security is also very important in Wireless Sensor Networks. There may be possible to attack by intruders on routing protocols
in Wireless Sensor Networks, and degrade the performance of networks. LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy)
is one of the very energy efficient routing protocols, which uses randomized cluster rotation to distribute energy load among all
sensor nodes. There may be some possible attacks on LEACH such as Selective Forwarding Attack, Sybil Attack and Hello
Flood Attack. In this paper, Selective Forwarding Attack creation, detection, and removal is done on LEACH in Heterogeneous
Wireless Sensor Networks and it is analyzed that how performance of networks affected with changes of parameters.
Performance of LEACH has been evaluated in terms of Packet Delivery Ratio and number of packets transmitted with different
parameters. In Selective Forwarding Attack malicious nodes selectively forward some data coming from other nodes, which are
destined for other nodes passing this malicious node. The performance analysis of LEACH in presence of Selective Forwarding
Attack has been done using Network Simulator 2 (NS2).

Keywords:-LEACH, Selective Forwarding Attack, Sybil Attack, Hello Flood Attack, Network Simulator

1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless sensor networks [1] are networks, which are composed of sensor nodes. The main objective of a sensor node is
sensing and collecting data from a certain domain, then processing that data and send it to the base station or sink,
which may be exceed and far from the network. These sensor nodes have limiting factors such as energy power
(battery), computational capability (processing device), transmission power, receiving power etc. These sensor nodes
sense the environment and make some computation if necessary and send data to the central unit called base station or
sink. Wireless Sensor Networks are very useful in many military and civil applications such as whether monitoring,
intrusion detection, security, detecting environmental conditions such as temperature, movement of particles, sun light,
sound, or presence of certain objects, disaster detection and so on. In wireless sensor networks, it is very difficult to
replace batteries of sensor nodes, so it is necessary to utilize the energy of sensor nodes very efficiently so that the life of
sensor networks would increase. The routing protocols for wireless sensor networks should be very energy aware,
because of limiting energy capacity of sensor nodes. There are two types of wireless sensor networks homogeneous
wireless sensor networks and heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. In homogeneous wireless sensor networks all the
sensor nodes are homogeneous in each factor like energy, computational capability, transmission power, receiving
power and so on. On the other hand in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks some sensor nodes may differ from
other nodes in terms of energy, computational capability, and transmission power, receiving power or other factors.
Wireless sensor networks have some different characteristics as compared to traditional wireless networks such as
Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) and cellular systems. These characteristics[2] are as follows:
1.1Dense sensor nodes deployment
The density of sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks is higher than density of mobile nodes in MANET. High
density of sensor nodes has better sensing efficiency.
1.2 Energy of nodes by battery
Sensor nodes are powered by battery. If battery of sensor node is fully discharged, then sensor node becomes dead.
These sensor nodes are deployed in such environment where replacing and recharging the battery is very difficult.
1.3Energy, computational capability, and storage constraint
Sensor nodes have very limiting energy, computation and memory capabilities.

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A Publisher for Research Motivation ........

Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2014

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Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
ISSN 2321-5992

2.LEACH
LEACH [3][4] is a hierarchical routing protocol in wireless sensor networks. In this protocol sensor nodes are
organized in the form of clusters. In each cluster one single node acts as a local base station called cluster head. Each
sensor node can communicate with corresponding cluster head only. Cluster head needs more computation and
transmission as other sensor nodes. So if cluster heads are exceed priori, the nodes which are cluster head die quickly.
Hence LEACH protocol used randomized cluster head rotation among sensor nodes, so that the battery of a single
sensor node is not consumed more. This increases the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. In addition to randomized
cluster-head rotation LEACH uses local data fusion at cluster head for compressing data being sent by cluster head to
the base station. Cluster head self election is done by the sensor nodes at any round with energy probability. These
cluster head nodes broadcast their status of being cluster head to all other sensor nodes in the sensor networks. Each
sensor node determines its cluster, so that it requires minimum energy to transmit data to cluster head. When all the
sensor nodes are organized into clusters, each cluster head creates a TDMA schedule for nodes in its cluster. All the
sensor nodes turn its transmitter at all times except its transmit time, hence energy of sensor nodes is saved. When
cluster head receives data from all sensor nodes in its cluster, it performs data aggregation and sends aggregated data to
the base station. This transmission is high energy transmission, because base station is far away from the network and
more data is transmitted. LEACH operation is performed into rounds and each round has three phases[5]:
2.1 Advertisement Phase
In advertisement phase sensor nodes are elected as cluster heads. This cluster head election is on the basis of energy
probability, which is based on current energy of nodes, total energy of sensor nodes in the network and expected
number of cluster heads taken in advance.[6] The threshold is calculated by the following formula:

Where k is the expected number of clusters per round, Ei(t) is the current energy of node Ni and Etotal is total energy
from all the nodes in the network. Then every sensor node generates a random number between 0 and 1. If the number
is less than the calculated threshold value, the sensor node becomes a cluster head for current round. Each node that
has elected as cluster head broad casts an advertisement message to rest of the entire sensor nodes using CSMA MAC
protocol and all messages are sent using same energy. At this time the receivers of all sensor nodes must be on to hear
the advertisement message. After advertisement phase all sensor nodes determines the clusters to which it belongs. This
decision is based on received signal strength of the advertisement message.
2.2 Cluster Set-up Phase
When each node has decided to which cluster it belongs. The node sends join request to cluster head using CSMA
MAC protocol. In this phase receivers of all cluster heads must be on, so that it can hear member nodes of its cluster.
After receiving all messages from nodes that are members of cluster, the cluster head node creates a TDMA schedule to
each member node at which node can transmit data to cluster head. This TDMA schedule is based on number of nodes
in the cluster. Cluster head broadcasts this TDMA schedule to the nodes in the cluster.
2.3 Data Transmission Phase
In this phase we assume that each sensor node has data to send. Each sensor node sends its data to its cluster head
during its allocated time. When cluster head receives data from all member nodes of its cluster. Cluster head node
performs data aggregation and sends data to base station or sink. This is a high energy transmission. After this phase
the next round begins and again new cluster heads are elected and new clusters are formed and data transmitted. The
same process is repeated for each round until network is dead or simulation time is exceeded. Figure 1 shows the
Clustered Wireless Sensor Network with LEACH protocol. Base Station is shown by tower, dotted circles represent the
clusters boundaries, red circles represent Cluster Heads, yellow circles represent Cluster Member Nodes and arrows
represent data.

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IPASJ International Journal of Computer Science (IIJCS)

A Publisher for Research Motivation ........

Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2014

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Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
ISSN 2321-5992

Figure 1 Clustered Wireless Sensor Network Using LEACH Protocol

LEACH is very energy efficient protocol in wireless sensor networks, but it can be vulnerable to some types of attacks.
Following are some possible attacks on LEACH in wireless sensor networks.

3. SELECTIVE FORWARDING ATTACK

In selective forwarding attack[7][8], the malicious nodes place itself in the path of data, then refuses to forward some
data by dropping data. Black Hole attack is a simple form of this attack, in which malicious nodes drop all the data
received on it. This type of attack can easily detect. But a subtle form of this attack is that when malicious node
selectively forwards some data and drops rest of the data. So this type of attack is very difficult to detect. In LEACH
when malicious node becomes cluster head it drops some data from member nodes, which is destined to base station.
This packet dropping may be based on node id's, time intervals, packet type or packet size etc. In LEACH protocol
sensor nodes sense and collect data. These collected data is sent to base station through cluster head. So cluster head is
intermediate node for communication between sensor nodes and base station. When malicious node becomes cluster
head, then it creates selective forwarding attack. Malicious node selectively forward some data and drops some data.
This forwarding of some selective data may be based on the node ids. The algorithm of creating selective forwarding
attack is as follows:
Algorithm for Selective Forwarding Attack
1: Let Ni::::::::Nn be the number of sensor nodes
2: Let M be the malicious node M belongs to Ni:::::::Nn
3: Let BS is base station.
4: Set round, r=0
5: for Each Round r do
6: Cluster Head Function
7: for all Sensor Nodes Ni to Nn do
8: set threshold, T(Ni) = Ei(t) Etotal _ K
9: if (RandomNumber (Ni) _ T(Ni)) then
10: Node Ni is Cluster Head
11: end if
12: end for
13: for every CH do
14: CH advertise
15: for each Ni to Nn do
16: Sensor nodes join the clusters on the basis of signal strength of received advertisement message from CH
17: end for
18: end for
19: for all CH do

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IPASJ International Journal of Computer Science (IIJCS)

A Publisher for Research Motivation ........

Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2014

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Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
ISSN 2321-5992

20: if CH = M then
21: for all member nodes mi of this cluster do
22: if mi mod 2 = 0 then
23: aggregate data received from this node into signal to send
24: else
25: drop data received from this node
26: end if
27: end for
28: else
29: for all member nodes mi of this cluster do
30: aggregate data received from this node into signal to send
31: end for
32: end if
33: end for
34: for all CH do
35: send data to BS
36: end for
37: end for
38: Set r = r+1

4. ATTACK DETECTION AND REMOVAL

In proposed method the detection of malicious node is done by calculating packet dropping by cluster head. If packet
dropping is exceeds a certain limit, then cluster head is detected as malicious node. After detecting the malicious node,
the malicious node is removed from the network. The algorithm of detection and removal of malicious node is as
follows:
Algorithm for Detection and Removal of Attack
1: Let CN be the number of cluster member nodes for a particular cluster in any round
2: Let DN be the number of data received by CH in same round
3: for each round r do
4: for all CH in round ri do
5: Threshold(CH) = DN CN _ 100
6: if threshold _ 20 then
7: CH is malicious node
8: remove this node from network
9: end if
10: end for
11: end for

5. SIMULATION RESULTS
We used Network Simulator (NS-2.34)[9] to simulate the performance of LEACH protocol without attack, with attack
and after detection and removal of attack. Simulation parameters used for simulation are given in table 1.
Table 1: Simulation Parameters
Sno

Parameters

Values

Area of Network Field

100m x 100m

Number of Sensor Nodes

100

Number of Normal Nodes

90

Number of Advanced Nodes

10

Energy of Normal nodes

2 Joules

Energy of Advanced Nodes

4 Joules

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IPASJ International Journal of Computer Science (IIJCS)

A Publisher for Research Motivation ........

Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2014

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Email: editoriijcs@ipasj.org
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Base Station Location

(50, 175)

Expected Number of Clusters

Simulation Time

3600 Sec

10

Cluster Changing Time

20 Sec

Figure 2 Scenario of Network using Network Animator (NAM)

Figure 2 shows the scenario of our network at an instance. Red circle represents the Base Station, which is far from
Sensor Nodes, Green circles represent Advanced Nodes, Blue circles represent Normal Nodes, Orange circles represent
Cluster Head Nodes and Yellow circle represents Malicious Node.

Figure 3 Number of Malicious Nodes Vs Packet Delivery Ratio

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Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2014

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ISSN 2321-5992

The graph in figure 3 shows the variation in Packet Delivery Ratio with changing number of Malicious Nodes in the
network. In this Packet Delivery Ratio is defined as the total number of packets generated by all sensor nodes divided
by total packets received at base station. The graph number of malicious node vs packet delivery ratio shows packet
delivery ratio with attack and after detection and removal of attack. All these results have taken for simulation
parameters given in table 1.

6. CONCLUSION
In this paper performance of LEACH protocol is evaluated with Selective Forwarding Attack using Network Simulator
2. It is observed that how Packet Delivery is affected, when number of malicious nodes increases. It is clear from the
Number of malicious nodes vs Packet Delivery Ratio graph that as number of malicious nodes increases Packet
Delivery Ratio decreases.

7. FUTURE WORK
There may also be other types of selective forwarding attacks in which malicious nodes drops data on some time
interval, packet types, and packet size. Also some other detection techniques may be proposed based on encryption,
authorization, etc. Some other types of attacks are also possible on LEACH, analysis of these types of attacks may be
done in future.

REFERENCES
[1] Wendi Rabiner Heinzelman, Anantha Chandrakasan, and Hari Balakrishnan "Energy-Efficient Communication
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Sciences 2000
[2] A.Pravin Renold, R.Poongothai, R.Parthasarathy, "Performance Analysis of LEACH with Gray Hole Attack in
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[3] R.Saravanakumar, S.G.Susila, J.Raja, "Energy Efficient Homogeneous and Heterogeneous System for Wireless
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[5] ZHANG, Wenbin LI, Dongxu CUI, Xueliang ZHAO, Zhongxing YIN "The NS2-based Simulation and Research
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[6] Shio Kumar Singh, M.P.Singh, and D.K.Singh "Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks A Survey",
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[7] H. Sun, C. Chen and Y. Hsiao "An efficient countermeasure to the selective forwarding attack in wireless sensor
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[8] C. Karlof and D. Wagner, "Secure Routing in Sensor Networks: Attacks and Countermeasures" Proc. of First IEEE
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[9] Teerawat Issariyakul, Ekram Hossain "Introduction to Network Simulator NS2", Reference Book

AUTHOR
Ms. Apoorva Joshi received the B.Tech degree in Information Technology from Rajasthan Technical
University in 2010 and M.Tech in Computer Science from Rajasthan Technical University. She has worked
in RCEW.Jaipur for a year. She is presently working at Vivekananda Institute of Technology East, Jaipur.

Ms. Pragya Sanghi received the B.Tech degree in Information Technology from Rajasthan Technical
University in 2013. She is presently working at Vivekananda Institute of Technology East, Jaipur.

Ms. Richa Agrawal received the B.Tech degree in Information Technology from Rajasthan Technical
University in 2012. She is presently working at Vivekananda Institute of Technology East, Jaipur.

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