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SECURITY AND COMMUNICATION NETWORKS Security Comm. Networks.

2009; 2:101103 Published online 30 December 2008 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/sec.92

Guest Editorial Security in Wireless Sensor Networks


By Mohammed S. Obaidat, Fellow, IEEE, Petros Nicopolitidis and Jung-Shian Li

Recent development in wireless communication networks has enabled the large-scale deployment of lowcost, energy efcient, and multi-purpose wireless sensor networks. A lot of real-world applications have been already deployed and many of them will be based on wireless sensor networks. These applications include geographical monitoring, medical care, manufacturing, transportation, military operations, environmental monitoring, industrial machine monitoring, and surveillance systems. A Wireless Sensor Network is a wireless network which consists of spatially scattered independent devices by the help of sensors to considerately observe the conditions of an environment. A sensor device is typically of small size and consists of the processing subsystem running on the devices CPU, the sensor subsystem, and the communication subsystem. A sensor network is a collection of a number of sensors that utilize wireless transmission in order to establish communication and form an ad-hoc wireless network. Inside such a network the task of each sensor node is dual; the node should: (a) collect data regarding a phenomenon that is being observed (e.g. seismic activity, humidity, re detection etc.) and (b) assist in routing of data captured by other nodes to a special node, called the sink, which is accessible via the system manager over a backbone network such as the Internet or a satellite link. The typical issues that differentiate a wireless sensor network from the more general case of an adhoc one are attributed to the operating environment of a sensor network and can be summarized as follows: (a) sensor network nodes have fewer capabilities for energy storage, computation, and communication, (b) sensor networks are mostly stationary; however topology changes do occur due to the frequent node failures in a wireless sensor network as opposed to mobility of nodes in ad hoc networks, (c) low-energy consumption may be an
Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

even more critical criterion than performance, as in most cases it is impossible to refuel the depleted batteries of sensors. Due to the nature of wireless communication in sensor networks, many security challenges are faced, including eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle, spoong, and DDoS. The concern for security in a wireless sensor network can be even bigger than that in a conventional ad hoc wireless network, as in many cases, the aforementioned computational and energy consumption restrictions pose barriers in the implementation of existing security solutions in a wireless sensor network. Thus, advances in the design and prototype of security mechanisms in wireless sensor network systems for protecting the condentiality, availability, and integrity are crucial for the success of sensor applications. The aim of this special issue of the Journal of Security and Communication Networks is to highlight some of the most important challenges in the area of security in wireless sensor networks and to present possible solutions. We hope that this issue will be a useful reference for current and future trends in this very active and crucial area of wireless sensor networks. We received 12 papers from all over the world. Each paper was reviewed by at least three qualied reviewers. We have accepted eight papers in this special issue. Papers in this special issue are organized as follows. The rst article is entitled LAID: A Learning Automata-Based Scheme for Intrusion Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks and is authored by Misra, Abraham, Obaidat, and Krishna. The paper uses learning automata, a machine learning method, to address the problem of detecting intrusion in a wireless sensor network. The second paper, Chaotic Communication Improves Authentication: Protecting WSNs Against

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Injection Attacks, authored by Martinovic, Gollan, and Schmitt, presents the idea of using parameters of the wireless physical layer to form a mechanism, via which, nodes can authenticate themselves to the wireless sensor network. The third paper is FBT: An Efcient Traceback Scheme in Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Network and is authored by Cheng, Chen, and Liao. It proposes a traceback method via which the attacking path can be reconstructed in order to identify the attacking source of a DoS/DDoS attack to a hierarchical wireless sensor network. The fourth paper is entitled An Effective Defensive Node against Jamming Attacks in Sensor Networks and is authored by Mpitziopoulos and Gavalas. The authors describe the design specications of a prototype node that effectively defends, via use of a hybrid FHSS-DSSS approach, against the possible jamming attacks a wireless sensor network may encounter. The fth paper entitled The Marvin Message Authentication Code and the LetterSoup Authenticated Encryption Scheme is authored by Simplicio, DAquino Barbuda, Barreto, Carvalho, and Margi. The paper presents an authentication function based on a new parallelizable message authentication code and also discusses a related authenticated encryption scheme. The sixth paper is Condentiality and Integrity for Data Aggregation in WSN Using Peer Monitoring and is authored by Di Pietro, Michiardi, and Molva. In this paper the authors present a new data aggregation mechanism in a sensor network that can achieve condentiality and integrity, and detect bogus data injections. Moreover, it has signicant resilience to failures of the networks nodes. The seventh paper is entitled Privacy-preserving Robust Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks and is authored by Conti, Zhang, Roy, Di Pietro, Jajodia, and Mancini. In this paper the authors propose a solution to protecting a nodes privacy from issues being raised due to the use of data aggregation in a wireless sensor network. The Special Issue concludes with an article entitled An Ant Colony Optimization Approach for Reputation and Quality-of-Service-Based Security in Wireless Sensor Networks, which is authored by Dhurandher, Misra, Obaidat, and Gupta. The authors address the problem of secure routing from the perspective of having nodes abiding to QoS parameters, thus preventing malicious nodes from being part of network routes.
Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The guest editors would like to thank all authors and reviewers for their valuable contributions to this special issue. We would also like to thank Prof. HsiaoHwa Chen, Editor-in-Chief of Security and Communication Networks Journal, for hosting this issue. Thanks are also due to all editorial assistants of the journal. We hope that this issue will become a useful reference and fuel for more research efforts in this important and fascinating research area of wireless sensor networking.

Mohammad S. Obaidat Monmouth University, NJ, USA Petros Nicopolitidis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Jung-Shian Li National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan

Guest Editors Biographies


Mohammad S. Obaidat (obaidat@ monmouth.edu) is an internationally well known academic, researcher, and scientist. He received his Ph.D. and M. S. degrees in computer engineering with a minor in computer science from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Dr. Obaidat is currently a full Professor of computer science at Monmouth University, NJ, USA. Among his previous positions are Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Graduate Program at Monmouth University and a faculty member at the City University of New York. He has received extensive research funding. He has authored or co-authored six books and over four hundred (400) refereed scholarly journal and conference articles. Dr. Obaidat has served as a consultant for several corporations and organizations worldwide and is a editor of many scholarly journals including being the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Communication Systems published by John Wiley. He is also an editor of IEEE Wireless Communications. In 2002, he was the scientic advisor for the World Bank/UN Workshop on Fostering Digital Inclusion. Recently, Dr. Obaidat was awarded the distinguished Nokia Research Fellowship and the Distinguished Fulbright Award. Dr. Obaidat has made pioneering and lasting contributions to the multi-facet elds of computer science and engineering. He has guest edited numerous special issues of scholarly journals such as IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, IEEE Wireless Communications, IEEE Systems Journal, Elsevier Performance Evaluation,
Security Comm. Networks. 2009; 2:101103 DOI:10.1002/sec

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SIMULATION: Transactions of SCS, Elsevier Computer Communications Journal, Journal of C & EE, and Wiley, Security and Communication Network Journal, and Wiley International Journal of Communication Systems, among others. Obaidat has served as the steering committee chair, advisory Committee Chair, honorary chair, and program chair of many international conferences. He is the founder of the International Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, SPECTS and has served as the General Chair of SPECTS since its inception. Obaidat has received a recognition certicate from IEEE. Between 1994 and 1997, Obaidat has served as the distinguished speaker/visitor of IEEE Computer Society. Since 1995 he has been serving as an ACM distinguished Lecturer. He is also an SCS Distinguished Lecturer. Prof. Obaidat is the founder of the SCS Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP) and its present director. Between 1996 and 1999, Dr. Obaidat served as an IEEE/ ACM program evaluator of the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board/Commission, CSAB/CSAC. Between 1995 and 2002, he has served as a member of the board of directors of the Society for Computer Simulation International. Between 2002 and 2004, he has served as the Vice President of Conferences of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International SCS. Between 2004 and 2006, he has served as the Vice President of Membership of SCS. Prof. Obaidat is currently the Senior Vice President of SCS. He has been invited to lecture and give keynote speeches worldwide. His research interests are: wireless communications and networks, modeling and simulation, performance evaluation of computer systems, and telecommunications systems, security of computer and network systems, high performance computing/computers, applied neural networks and pattern recognition, security of e-based systems, and speech processing. During the 2004/2005 academic, he was on sabbatical leave as the Fulbright distinguished Professor and Advisor to the President of Philadelphia University (Dr. Adnan Badran who became in April 2005 the Prime Minster of Jordan). Prof. Obaidat is a Fellow of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International SCS, and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Petros Nicopolitidis (petros@csd. auth.gr) received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Since 2004 he is a Lecturer in the same department. He has published more than 40 papers in international refereed journals and conferences. He is the co-author of the book Wireless Networks (Wiley, 2003). His research interests are in the areas of wireless networks and mobile communications. Since 2007 he serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Communication Systems published by Wiley. He is a member of IEEE. Jung-Shian Li (jsli@mail.ncku. edu.tw) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan. He graduated from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan, with B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. He teaches communication courses and his research interests include wired and wireless network protocol design, network security, and network management. He is currently involved in funded research projects dealing with network security testbed, common criteria, intrusion prevention system, router active queue management, VoIP security, and IP QoS architectures. He is the Deputy Director of Information and Communication Security Research and Development Center and the Division Director of Computer and Network Center at NCKU. He serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Communication Systems. He was a founding program cochair of the International workshop on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering (SADFE) 2005 and International Workshop on Forensics for Future Generation Communication environments 2007 (F2GC-07).

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Security Comm. Networks. 2009; 2:101103 DOI:10.1002/sec

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