Hindawi Publishing Corporation

International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Volume 2013, Article ID 802526, 16 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/802526

Review Article
New Trends in Secure Routing Protocols for
Wireless Sensor Networks

Aly Mohamed El-Semary1,2 and Mohamed Mostafa Abdel-Azim1,3

1
College of Computer Science and Engineering, Taibah University, Al-Madina Al-Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia
2
Faculty of Engineering, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt
3
Faculty of Industrial Education, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt

Correspondence should be addressed to Mohamed Mostafa A. Azim; [email protected]

Received 21 February 2013; Accepted 15 April 2013

Academic Editor: S. Khan

Copyright © 2013 A. M. El-Semary and M. M. A. Azim. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.

Recently, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been deployed into a variety of applications including homeland security, military
systems, and health care. Sensor nodes deployed in such networks are subject to several attacks such as sinkhole and select
forwarding, wormhole, Hello flood, and replication attacks. Therefore, developing secure and energy-efficient routing protocols
to protect WSNs against these attacks while efficiently utilizing the energy of the deployed nodes has become imperative. Several
routing protocols have been proposed in the literature for WSNs. Most of these protocols assume static nodes and sinks to collect
data from network fields. However, they may be highly movable, and recent advances show that mobile sensors in WSNs have a
promising performance. Therefore, this paper surveys the state of the art on routing protocols related to WSNs and presents the
security issues or problems associated with the current protocols as well as discusses the future trends and open research issues on
secure routing protocols of WSNs.

1. Introduction a short distance wirelessly and cooperate to accomplish a

common task, such as environmental monitoring.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are emerging networking In this paper, we survey the state of the art on the routing
technologies for low-cost, unattended monitoring of a wide protocols used in WSNs. We demonstrate different security
range of environments. WSNs received a great importance issues to be taken into consideration when deploying WSNs
in the current decade due to the recent development of indicating their security requirements for such networks and
the IEEE 802.15.4 standard [1] for the physical and MAC demonstrating different types of attacks that may face. We
layers and the forthcoming ZigBee standard [2] for the also summarize the state-of the art secure routing protocols
network and application layers. Moreover, the latest delivery proposed for WSNs. Finally, we present the future directions
of the IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks and open research issues or problems in the field of routing
(6LoWPAN) standard [3] enables us to communicate with protocols of WSNs.
devices across the Internet directly without having to go The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
through a translation step such as a ZigBee-to-IP translation. Section 2 gives an overview of the applications of wireless
A WSN typically consists of tens, hundreds, or even sensor networks. Section 3 presents a summary of the state
thousands of low-cost, low-power, and multifunctional sen- of the art routing protocols used in wireless sensor networks.
sor nodes that are deployed in a region of interest [4] as Section 4 demonstrates security issues in wireless sensor
shown in Figure 1. These tiny sensor nodes are equipped with networks. Section 5 presents the up to date secure routing
sensing functionalities, embedded microprocessors, radio protocols employed in WSNs. Next, Section 6 discusses
transceivers, and small memory. They communicate over the recent research issues related to routing protocols of
2 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

data-centric routing, the sink node forwards queries to

selected regions and waits for data replayed for the sensors in
the specified regions. While data is being requested through
queries, attribute-based naming should be utilized to identify
Data processing
host
the characteristics of required data. Several data-centric
Aggregated data protocols have been proposed in the literature including
Controller
transmission Flooding and Gossiping [19], SPIN [20], DD [21], and Rumor
module [22].
Flooding and Gossiping are two classical algorithms to
convey data in sensor networks without any routing protocols
and topology maintenance. In Flooding algorithm, when a
sensor receives a data packet, it broadcasts the data packets
to all neighbors within its transmission range. Each sensor
receiving the packet repeats the same process until the
packet reaches its either destination or time to live. Even
though Flooding algorithm is straightforward to implement,
it has several disadvantages including implosion, overlap, and
Mote resource blindness. Implosion occurs when a node receives the
same packet from more than one node. Gossiping algorithm
Mote
overcomes the shortcoming of implosion by just making each
Figure 1: Illustration of a wireless sensor network [4]. receiving node forwards the data packet to a randomly chosen
neighbor which in turn selects another random neighbor to
forward the packet to and so on.
WSNs. Finally, the paper concludes with the future research Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation (SPIN)
directions in Section 7. is a family of adaptive routing protocols. SPIN is designed
to improve classical mechanisms to overcome the problems
2. Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks of implosion and overlap. It gives a high-level name (called
metadata) to completely describe the collected data, and also
WSNs are currently being employed in a variety of domains it uses three types of messages: advertisement (ADV), request
ranging from commercial, industrial, environmental, and (REQ), and DATA to convey data messages throughout the
healthcare to military applications to monitor data that would network. In SPIN protocols, when a node has a data to convey,
be difficult or expensive to capture using wired sensors [5, 6]. it first sends an ADV message attached with a metadata to
Based on these fields, a variety of applications have been its neighbors for negotiation. Next, each node receiving the
presented in the literature including aircraft monitoring [7], ADV message replays with a REQ message if it is interested
ecological habit monitoring [8], and geological monitoring in the data. Then, when the node that has the data receives
[9]. Wireless biomedical sensor networks (WBSNs) [10] are the REQ messages, it starts to send the DATA message to
another application domain for WSNs that is characterized by each node sending a REQ. Finally, once a node receives the
the necessary low error rates compared to traditional WSNs. DATA message, it repeats the same sequence of steps to
Another trend in the WSNs applications is the Vision- convey the DATA messages to all interested nodes all over
Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks [11] which is a new the network. SPIN has the advantage that it provides more
application platform for Wireless Image Sensor Network. energy savings over the classical protocols. This is achieved
Application examples of this category include Event Detec- through using metadata negotiation which almost reduces
tion, Multimodal Node Localization, Collaborative Self- the redundant data halves. On the other hand, the data
Localization, Traffic Monitoring, and Target Tracking. advertisement mechanism of SPIN cannot guarantee delivery
of data. The implosion problem still exists during the REQ
3. Wireless Sensor Networks phase and the solution for the collision is not considered.
Directed Diffusion (DD) is a routing protocol for dis-
Routing Protocols tributed activities where a large number of limited resource
Due to the natural limitations imposed on sensor nodes, nodes locally coordinate to achieve a sensing task. The DD
several network layer protocols have been proposed to utilize protocol has two main features: Interests and Gradients. The
sensor’s energy to prolong the life time of deployed wireless Interest is a named data or task description to define the
sensor networks (WSNs). These protocols can be generally sensor events that an originator is interested in, and it has
classified into four main categories: data-centric, hierarchical, a list of several attribute-value pairs including type, region,
location-based, and Quality of Service- (QoS-) based routing rate, duration, and time stamp. The type is used to impose
protocols. Extensive surveys on routing protocols can be what type of data should be sensed, and the region defines
found in [12–18]. the network part from which the data should be drawn. The
rate attribute sets how often the data should be forwarded,
3.1. Data-Centric Protocols. Data-centric routing protocols while the duration sets how long the interest should be active,
are negotiation-based and application-specific protocols. In and the time stamp is used to refresh the interest. Each
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 3

interest entry has several gradients, one to each neighbor. applicable to large networks and time-critical applications.
Each gradient also has a set of attributes including a node In addition, the idea of dynamic clustering brings extra
identity to which the data will be forwarded, data rate that overhead. Furthermore, the cluster heads send data to the
tells how often the data will be forwarded, and the duration sink through high power link which make these clusters
field which sets how long the gradient will be active. The consume their energy faster.
DD protocol is completed by diffusing the interest, setting up Threshold-Sensitive Energy-Efficient Protocols (TEEN)
gradients, and sending data and path reinforcement. are designed for time-critical applications in which a sudden
Rumor routing algorithm is a variation of DD, and it is change in the measured attribute (e.g., temperature) may
characterized by events, queries, and agents. An event is a happen. The TEEN networks employ multilevel clustering
phenomenon occurring in a fixed region of the network. A mechanism to avoid the transmission over high power link
query is a request for information or an order to collect data, implemented in LEACH. In TEEN, once the clusters and
while an agent is a long-lived packet used to create paths cluster heads are formed, each cluster head broadcasts two
leading to events. Each node on the path contains both a list main parameters: hard threshold (HT) and soft threshold
of its neighbors and an event table in which a row has an event (ST) to the sensor nodes in its clusters. Each sensor in
name, number of hops to the event, and the next node in the the network has a variable called SV to store the sensed
path toward the event. In the rumor routing, any node can value. Also, each sensor node continuously measures the
generate a query and then send the query in a random walk environment and if the measured value is above its HT for
to find the path. The query keeps going on until it finds the the first time, the node stores the value into SV, turns on
path or its time to live (TTL) expires. If the node originated, its transmitter, and sends the measured value to its cluster
the query discovers that the query is dead; without finding a head which in turn forwards it to another cluster head until
path to the event, it can retransmit, stop, or flood the query. it reaches the sink node. The node will next transmit the
measured value in the current cluster period if two conditions
3.2. Hierarchical Routing Protocols. Hierarchical routing pro- are met: (1) the current measured value is greater than HT
tocols often group sensor nodes into clusters that form a hier- and (2) the current measured value varied from the SV by
archy. Several hierarchical protocols have been introduced the value of ST. Using this technique, TEEN reduces more
in the literature including LEACH [23], TEEN [24], and network traffic and extends the life time of the LEACH
PEGASIS [25]. networks into two things: (1) it reduces the large energy
Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) is a consumed by transmission over high power link through
self-organizing, adaptive clustering protocol that utilizes ran- utilizing multilevel clustering algorithm and (2) it reduces the
domization to balance the energy load among the deployed network traffic through implementing the HT and ST.
nodes in the network. LEACH assumes that all nodes start Power Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems
with uniform energy distribution, and all nodes can commu- (PEGASIS) implements a chain-based algorithm to eliminate
nicate directly with the base station. It works in two rounds, the overhead resulted from dynamic formation of cluster in
set-up and steady-state. The set-up round is responsible LEACH and TEEN. PEGASIS assumes that all nodes know
for forming clusters and cluster heads. During this round, the overall topology and implements greedy algorithm to
sensors vote for themselves to be cluster heads at any given form data chain. To form the data chain, a downstream
time with certain probability based on their energy. Next, the node chooses the closest node as an upstream node from the
cluster head advertises their status to other sensors in the unchained nodes. Once the data chain is formed, the last node
network. Accordingly, each sensor node decides the cluster of the chain is called the chain leader which begins to send
that it wants to belong to by selecting the cluster head that data to the base station. Any node on the chain receives the
needs the least amount of communication energy. Finally, data from its downstream, aggregates the data with its own in
once all the nodes are arranged into clusters, each cluster some way, and then sends the aggregated data to its upstream
head creates a schedule for the nodes in its cluster to avoid node. This process is repeated until the data reaches the chain
collision. This results in the network structure that consists leader which in turn sends it to the base station. The data
of a base station or sink, cluster heads that communicate with chain is constructed once and followed by several rounds of
the sink, and sensor nodes each is recognized by a cluster and data communication, but if a node on the chain is dead, the
communicated with its cluster head that is a single hop to the chain is reconstructed again in the same manner to avoid the
sink. dead node. Even though PEGASIS overcomes the overhead
The steady-state phase is concerned with transferring resulted from dynamic cluster formulation by constricting
the data from the sensors in the network to the base data chains, it has several drawbacks: (1) it assumes that
station or sink node. During this phase, the cluster head each node can communicate directly with the BS, (2) the
collects the data from the sensors in its cluster. Once the chain leader can become a bottleneck, and (3) it uses greedy
data is collected from all nodes in the cluster, the cluster algorithm which is locally efficient but globally inefficient.
head locally aggregates the data in some way based on the
application to remove the unreliable data. Next, the cluster 3.3. Location-Based Routing Protocols. Location-based rout-
head transmits the collected data to the base station. LEACH ing protocols are a family of routing protocols in which
uses the local processing to reduce global communication and each deployed sensor node should know its local location
also randomizes the rotation of cluster heads. Therefore, it information by some means, for instance, GPS [26]. In
prolongs the network’s life time. On the other hand, it is not addition, it also may require that each sensor node is aware
4 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

of its remaining amount of energy. It uses this information audio and visual information collection modules that have
as forwarding metrics during the forwarding of data packets the ability to retrieve multimedia data, store or process data in
from a source node to a distention node. This family of real time, correlate and fuse multimedia data originated from
protocols include GEAR [27], Min-Hop [28], MAP [29], and heterogeneous sources, and wirelessly transmit collected data
PEW [30]. to the desired destinations.
Geographic and Energy-Aware Routing (GEAR) is In the QoS-based routing protocols, routing process of
designed for routing queries to specific regions. It assumes selecting the next forwarding node is performed based on
that all sensor nodes are aware of their remaining energy and Quality of Service (QoS) parameters such as bounded latency
their locations by some means such as GPS. In addition, each or delay, bandwidth, jitter, and reliability. However, satisfying
node should know the location and remaining energy of it the stringent QoS requirements of multimedia transmis-
neighbors simply by Hello flood messages. GEAR utilizes sion in a resource-constrained sensor network environment
this information to construct a heuristic function that avoids places new challenges to routing. Hence, optimal energy
energy holes and chooses sensors to route a packet toward and application-specific QoS-aware routing for WMSNs have
the target region. This forwarding process is repeated until gained considerable research attention recently. The authors
the packet is disseminated inside the target region. in [33] claim that classic multipath routing approaches
Minimum hop (Min-Hop) routing protocol forwards are vulnerable to black holes attacks, mainly due to their
packets from a source node to the sink node through an deterministic nature. They also proposed mechanisms that
optimal path. The optimal path is the route that has the generate randomized multipath routes. Besides routes ran-
shortest path to the sink. The path is represented as the domization, the generated routes are also highly dispersive
number of hops to the sink. Therefore, the source node and energy efficient, making them quite capable of circum-
chooses the node of the next hop as the one that has the venting black holes.
shortest path or the minimum number of hops to the sink. If The authors in [34] focus on the selective jamming attacks
several nodes have the same number of hops to the sink, the in WSNs. To face these attacks, they developed three schemes
one with the maximum energy is considered. This forwarding that prevent real-time packet classification by combining
process is continued until the packet reaches either the sink cryptographic primitives with physical layer attributes.
node or its predefined maximum of hops to avoid packet In [35], the authors propose a secure node disjoint
loop. The Min-Hop works in two phases: initialization phase multipath routing protocol in which the data packets are
and routing phase. The initialization phase is concerned transmitted in a secure manner by using the digital signature
with building the routing tables of the network nodes, while cryptosystem. Their proposed protocol can improve the
the routing phase starts after initialization phase, and it is packet delivery and reduce the end-to-end delay.
responsible for forwarding data packets through the network The authors in [36] formulated the secret-sharing-based
until they reach the sink node. Although the Min-Hop multipath routing problem as an optimization problem
improves the average energy consumption in the network by aiming at maximizing both network security and life time,
using the shortest paths, it overutilizes the nodes along the subject to the energy constraints. They also propose a three-
shortest paths. This results in increasing energy gaps or holes phase disjoint routing scheme called the Security and Energy-
and decreasing network life time. efficient Disjoint Route (SEDR). Based on the secret-sharing
Maximum Available Power (MAP) is an enhanced ver- algorithm, the SEDR scheme can depressively and randomly
sion of the Min-Hop to lengthen the network life time. The deliver shares all over the network in the first two phases and
MAP distributes network load by choosing the neighbor node then transmits these shares to the sink node. The proposed
with the maximum energy, but this leads to significantly scheme improves the network security under both scenarios
longer paths. Both Min-Hop and MAP forward data packets of single and multiple black holes without reducing the
based on local view of neighbors and thus may result in network’s life time.
energy holes that lead to decreasing the network life time. In
other words, selected paths may include one or more nodes
4. Security Issues in Wireless Sensor Networks
with very low energy.
Path Energy Weight (PEW) overcomes this shortcoming Due to the limited resources of the sensor nodes in wireless
by deploying a global view mechanism. Its main idea is to sensor networks, most of the traditional security mechanisms
globally map energy levels of all nodes along the communica- employed in traditional wireless networks are not applicable
tion path into a single parameter. This parameter reflects how for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Thus, applying a secu-
uniform the energy distribution along the path is. It gives a rity mechanism into a WSN is a challenging task. The rest
better weight to a path with balanced energy level over a path of this section introduces the main security issues associated
with unbalanced energy level. with WSNs. These main issues are security requirements,
attacks in WSNs, and key managements [37, 38].
3.4. QoS-Based Routing Protocols. Wireless Multimedia Sen-
sor Networks (WMSNs) [31, 32] are a new powerful class of 4.1. Security Requirement in WSNs. To accomplish security in
sensor-based distributed intelligent systems capable of ubiq- WSNs, the basic security requirements or objectives should
uitously retrieving multimedia information derived by the be applied to face passive attacks, active attacks, and Denial-
recent technological advancements in microelectromechan- of-service (DoS) attacks [39, 40]. Passive attacks are silent
ical systems. WMSNs consist of sensor nodes equipped with in nature and do not affect the normal network operations;
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 5

therefore they are very difficult to detect. However, pas- a selective forwarding attack by encouraging the target node
sive attacks lay down a foundation for later launching an to send out packets through those weak links.
active attack. Integrity and availability are compromised by In the false routing information attack, an attacker can
active attacks, while the confidentiality of end-users’ traffic reshape the whole network by conveying false routing infor-
is compromised by passive attacks. The confidentiality is mation to the other nodes in the network. As a result, the
the process of hiding messages so that unauthorized entity attacker can create routing loops, attract or repel network
cannot reveal them. The integrity is the process of ensuring traffic from specific nodes, extend or shorten source routes,
that messages are not altered by unauthorized entity. The generate fake error messages, cause network partitions,
availability is the process of ensuring that network services increase end-to-end latency, and reduce the network life time.
are available for authorized entities when they are needed. In the wormhole attack, two adversaries cooperated to
In wireless networks, these requirements are independent of tunnel messages received from sensors at a network location
application due to the data aggregation at the intermediate over a low latency link and then replay them to sensors at
nodes. However, some systems may satisfy some of the a different location. The wormhole attack is dangerous for
requirements based on the application [41]. The DoS attack WSN routing protocols since attackers can achieve it without
will be discussed in details in the following subsection. compromising any sensor node in the network; even all of the
sensor nodes in the network utilize effective authentication
and confidentiality mechanism.
4.2. Attacks on Routing Protocols of WSNs. Wireless sensor In selective forwarding, malicious nodes may not forward
networks are subject to several types of attacks which can specific messages and simply drop them. A simple aspect of
be categorized into attacks on information in transit, node the selective forwarding called sometimes grey-hole attack
replication attack, Denial-of-service, and routing attacks. is when a malicious node acts like a black hole by refusing
Since the routing protocols are the scope of this paper, the to forward every observable packet. The selective forwarding
first three categories are discussed briefly hereafter, and the attack is most effective when the attacker’s node is able to
rest of section is devoted for routing attacks. include himself on the forwarding path of target messages.
Attacks on information in transit are the most common In the sinkhole attack, one or more malicious nodes
attacks against WSNs in which the information in tran- prevent the base station from obtaining complete and correct
sit is vulnerable to eavesdropping, modification, injection, sensing data, thus forming a serious threat to higher-layer
interruption, and traffic analysis. Most of these attacks can applications. The sinkhole attack is achieved by making a
be thwarted by implementing confidentiality, authentication, compromised node look attractive to its neighbor nodes with
and integrity. In a node replication attack, an attacker can respect to the routing metrics. Consequently, the attacker
insert a new node into a network which has been cloned from manages to draw as much traffic as possible that is designated
an existing node. This new node can act exactly like the old to the base station. By involving himself in the routing
node, or it can have some extra behavior, such as transmitting process, the attacker is then able to launch more severe
interested information directly to the attacker. The Denial-of- attacks such as selective forwarding, modifying or dropping
Service (DoS) attacks can take place at different layers. At the the received packets.
physical layer, one or more attackers continuously transmit a In the Hello flood attack, an adversary exploits the
radio signal that interferes with the radio frequency used by behavior of most routing protocols requiring each node
the sensors. This jamming can render the network sensors to to broadcast a Hello message to discover its neighbor and
be ineffective. Also, DoS attack can occur at the data link layer automatically create a network. Nodes receiving this message
by violating the communication protocol. For example, a mark the sending node as their parent. As a result, each of
malicious node continuously transmits messages to generate these nodes will forward the packets to its parent. In the Hello
collision or to deplete the power of the target nodes [42]. flood attack, an attacker can use a wireless device with a large
DoS attacks at network layer involve attacking the routing enough transmission power for compromising all nodes in
protocols which is discussed in the rest of this section. the network that this device is its parent. For example, if
A large number of the routing protocols of wireless an attacker broadcasts a Hello message with a large enough
sensor networks are designed without security in mind. transmission power, the malicious node will convince each
Consequently, these protocols are subject to several attacks node in the network that the adversary is its neighbor and
associated with the network layer of ad hoc networks. Most marks the adversary as its parent. This makes all nodes send
of these attacks fall into one of the following categories: their messages to the adversary, but because they are far away
acknowledgment spoofing attack [42], false routing informa- from this adversary, they send them to oblivion.
tion attack [43], wormhole attack [44], selective forwarding In the Sybil attack, a malicious node unlawfully claims
attack [45], sinkhole attack [46], Hello flood attack [46], and several identities to represent a large number of other sensor
Sybil attack [47]. nodes in the network. In this attack, each of these identities
In the acknowledgement spoofing attack, an adversary is called a Sybil node which can be obtained be an attacker
may forge on acknowledgement aiming to influence that a in one of two ways. In the first way, the attacker can simply
weak link is strong or a dead node is alive. As a result, a weak generate a new Sybil identity from the address space to
link may be chosen for routing, and hence packets delivered each Sybil node. For example, if a node is identified by
through that link may be lost or corrupted. An attacker a 16-bit integer, the attacker can simply assign a random
using acknowledgment spoofing attack can effectively mount 16-bit integer for each Sybil node. In the second way, the
6 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

attacker can steal or spoof a legitimate identity for each Sybil (MAC) to provide integrity and packet correctness, but it did
node. The way is most likely used when the address space is not clearly specify how the confidentiality is achieved. Like
intentionally limited to prevent attackers from injecting any SPIN, SSPIN works in three stages: ADV, REQ, and DATA.
new identity. Once each of the Sybil nodes is assigned an When a node has new data, it creates ADV message with its
identity, it can communicate with legitimate nodes directly or MAC and then broadcasts the ADV to its neighbors. Once a
indirectly through malicious nodes. Consequently, the Sybil node obtains the ADV, it verifies the ADV through its MAC.
attack imposes a significant impact on the routing process of If it is a valid ADV, the receiver sends the REQ message
the underlying network. to a source which in turn will verify the REQ through the
associated MAC. If the REQ is valid, the DATA stage starts.
4.3. Key Management in WSNs. The wireless sensor networks The source generates the MAC, attaches it to the data packet,
(WSNs) have a set of security requirements that must be and then sends the packet to the destination. The authors
achieved to protect the networks against most of the associ- prove that SSPIN is secure if MAC scheme is secure against
ated attacks. These security requirements are confidentiality, existential forgery attack.
integrity, availability, authentication, and refreshment. To ITSRP (Intrusion-Tolerant Secure Routing Protocol)
provide these requirements, a key management mechanism applies mechanisms for authenticated key exchange and
suitable for WSN must be implemented. The key management energy factor as well as resistance to some types of attacks
in WSN is a set of key distribution mechanisms; each such as sinkhole and wormhole attacks. The authors of ITSRP
mechanism is responsible for establishing cryptographic key developed Distributed key management scheme running at
or key material among all sensors nodes in the network. In the sink. It is responsible for distributed and session key
addition, it is concerned with revoking and refreshing keys. A initialization. ITSRP uses cryptography to provide authenti-
good key distribution mechanism should have the following cation and data secrecy.
features: scalability, efficiency, connectivity, and resilience COmpromised nOde Locator (COOL) is an authentica-
The scalability means that the key distribution mecha- tion scheme proposed by Zhang et al. [56]; the main idea of
nism should support large networks and be flexible against this protocol is to detect and locate compromised nodes once
substantial increase in network size even after deployment. they misbehave in the network based on the observation of
Efficient mechanism should consider sensors limitations such well-behaved sensor nodes.
as storage, processing, and communication. Key connectivity Energy-Efficient Secure Routing Protocol (EESRP) is
is the probability that two or more nodes share the same key. designed to provide both security and energy efficiency
Enough key connectivity must be provided for a WSN in through developing two protocols: Roulette-Wheel Routing
order to perform its task. Resilience means that the algorithm Protocol (RWRP) and Secure Routing Protocol (SRP). The
is resisting against node capture. For example, compromising RWRP is developed to forward data packets from a source
the security credentials stored on a sensor node should not to the sink node. The forwarding decision of each node is
reveal information about the secrecy of any other links in independent from other nodes (i.e., the node does not collect
the WSN. These features conflict with each other, and thus information from other nodes to make the decision). Thus,
a tradeoff should be considered. Accordingly, researchers the node decision cannot be deceived by other nodes. SRP is
developed several key distribution mechanisms including interested in securing data during its traveling from a source
[48–52]. to the sink. It implements 𝜇TESLA to authenticate packets
from the sink. In addition, it used shared keys, Message
5. Secure Routing Protocols Authentication Code (MAC), and time stamp to provide
confidentiality, authentication and integrity, and refreshment
Even though the above mentioned routing protocols utilize of packets, respectively.
the limited capabilities of sensor nodes, they have not been Dual Sink Secure Routing Protocol (DSSRP) is an
designed with a security goal in mind. Consequently, they are enhanced version from the EESRP to prolong the network
not applicable into adversarial environment, such as military life time by using two sinks. Like the EESRP, DSSRP provides
systems and disaster relief, due to their susceptibility to a great its functionality through two protocols: Next Node Selection
number of attacks against routing protocols. These attacks Protocol (NNSP) and Network Protection Protocol (NPP).
include selective forwarding, sinkhole, wormhole, and Sybil NNSP and NPP are a modification version of RWRP and SRP
described in Section 4. To protect WSNs against these routing to adapt the operation for two sinks, respectively.
attacks, a number of secure routing protocols have been TTSS (The Three-Tier Security Scheme) is a secure
proposed in the literature including SPINS [53], SSPIN [54], routing protocol designed to eliminate mobile sink replication
ITSRP [55], COOL [56], EESRP [57], DSSRP [58], TTSS [59], attacks associated with sensor networks that have mobile
SRPMND [60], and STAPLE [61]. sinks. It differentiates between three types of nodes: mobile
SPINS enabled security features through two security sinks, stationary access nodes, and sensor nodes. The stationary
protocols: SNEP and 𝜇TESLA. SNEP provides confidentiality, access nodes are a small number of nodes chosen randomly
integrity, authentication, and freshness, while 𝜇TESLA [62] from the network nodes, and they are used as access points
provides authenticated broadcast. SPINS gives more attention to mobile sinks in order to collect data from sensor nodes.
on key management. Also, TTSS uses two separate pools of polynomial keys:
Secure SPIN (SSPIN) is a secure version of SPIN family the mobile polynomial pool MP of size 𝑀 and the static
discussed in Section 3. It uses Message Authentication Code polynomial pool SP of size 𝑆. TTSS works in two phases: static
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 7

and mobile polynomial predistribution and key discovery in [66] presented cross-layer secure and resource-aware on
between mobile node and stationary node. In the first phase demand routing (CSROR) protocols for hybrid WMN which
which was executed before deployment, all mobile sinks and is designed to ensure routing security and provide different
stationary access nodes are randomly given as 𝑘𝑚 and one applications specific requirements for multimedia delivery
polynomial (𝑘𝑚 > 1) from MP such that the number of and real-time transmissions. CSROR selects an optimum
polynomials in each mobile sink is greater than the number route on the basis of route security taking into consideration
of polynomial in stationary access nodes. This is to assure the different cross-layer parameters.
that a mobile sink shares with high probability a mobile
polynomial with a stationary access node and to reduce
the number of compromised mobile polynomials in case a
6. Recent Research Issues in
stationary access node is compromised. Also, all stationary WSN Routing Protocols
access nodes and sensor nodes randomly pick a subset Due to the continual proliferation of WSN applications,
of 𝑘𝑠 from SP. In the second phase, when a sensor node especially, QoS crucial applications, the routing protocols for
establishes a direct pairwise key with a mobile sink, it has these networks have introduced a lot of challenges that need
to find a stationary access node in its neighborhood that more study and exploration. These research challenges or
share a pairwise polynomial with the mobile sink. Using issues include energy efficiency and QoS guarantee, network
two polynomials makes the authentication of mobile sinks dynamics, multiple sources and sinks, dynamic holes bypass-
independent of the key distribution of sensor nodes. ing, and secure routing [16]. Due to the importance of these
SRPMND stands for Secure Routing Protocol with Mali- issues, the rest of this section is devoted to discuss them for
cious Node Detecting and Diagnosing for Wireless Sensor future study
Networks. It uses 𝜇TESLA authentication protocol to protect
packets sink node against the modification, forging, and
replay. Also, the protocol implements an acknowledgment 6.1. Energy Efficiency and QoS Guarantee. Utilizing nodes’
mechanism to detect the malicious nodes. For example, if energy is an essential factor in designing routing protocols of
the node did not hear an acknowledgment within a specific WSNs to prolong the network life time of traditional WSNs.
period of time, this means that the packet is forwarded to a However, employing such energy-efficient routing protocols
malicious node. Therefore, a secure route can be created when in WMSN may result in energy holes due to the large amount
each node on the path forwards its packet and waits for an of data transferred in such networks. Figure 2 describes this
acknowledgement until the packet reaches the sink. issue in which Figure 2(a) explores the energy-efficient path
STAPLE is a secure routing and aggregation protocol from node A to the sink node. However, overutilizing this
with low energy cost for sensor networks. It applies one- efficient path may result in energy holes along the path as
way hash chain and multipath routing to gain the security shown in Figure 2(b). A possible solution to overcome the
and uses hash-based message authenticated code to achieve energy hole problem is to explore multipath techniques that
authentication and data integrity. In addition, it uses symmet- satisfy both energy efficiency and QoS requirements between
ric cryptography to provide data secrecy. STAPLE works in the node A and the sink node as depicted in Figure 2(c).
three stages: initialization, transmission, and source authen- Multipath routing can be interpreted in two different
tication. The first stage is responsible for both arranging ways. First, it can be envisioned as a multipath exploration
the nodes in different levels according to the minimum hop while employing a single path randomly at a time for data
from the sink node and distributing keys. The second stage transmission. The objective of the random selection of a path
is concerned with forwarding packets from child node to is to evenly distribute the energy consumption among the
parent and so on until they reach the sink. During this stage, explored paths. In this case, multipath routing can improve
STAPLE achieves child authentication and data integrity the reliability and strengthen the security by avoiding the
authentication as well as detection of false packets. The last failed or compromised paths. Second, multipath routing can
stage authenticates the source and verifies integrity. also be achieved by exploring multipaths and employing
In addition, the authors in [63] propose a security them for carrying the distributed data along the explored
approach that uses secret key cryptography and key man- paths simultaneously. In addition to the advantages of the first
agement along with rekeying support. The proposed protocol scenario, the second one will reduce the end-to-end delay and
provides backward secrecy, privacy, data integrity, and secure facilitate the detection and prevention of selective forwarding
management to a wireless sensor network. It is also capable of and sinkhole attacks. However, data segmentation at the
identifying different attacks such as replay attack, DoS attack, source node and aggregation at the sink node will introduce
and Sybil attack with low-resource requirements. Khan et al. an overhead. Multipath routing providing QoS guarantee
[64] proposed a robust and secure routing protocol for an requires further studies for investigating the tradeoff between
infrastructure-based wireless mesh (SRPM) networks. The the energy efficiency and the QoS parameters.
proposed protocol performs well against a variety of multihop
threats tested over a range of networks scenarios. The authors 6.2. Network Dynamics. Most of the current routing algo-
in [65] propose a cross-layer design to improve the overall rithms assume that network sensor nodes are static. However,
performance of multihop wireless networks. The proposed they may be highly movable, and latest advances show that
architecture provides different parameters at different layers mobile sensors in WSNs have a promising performance [16].
that can be utilized in protocol design phase. The authors Also, the recent research on data collection reveals that
8 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

Path 1
le
y ho
erg
En

A
A

(a) Energy efficient path (b) Energy hole resulted from a path overutilization

Path 1
Path 2

Path 3

Sensor node
Sink/base station
Low bandwidth links

(c) Multipath exploration

Figure 2: Energy utilization and multipath.

reporting data through implementing and leveraging sink

mobility is promising for energy-efficient data gathering than
reporting data through long, multi-hop, and error-prone Obstacle Trail point 4
paths to a static sink in either tree or cluster network structure
[67]. Accordingly, Liu et al. [68] proposed a data reporting
protocol that implements a mobile sink. Their protocol is Obstacle
called SinkTrail in which a mobile sink moves around the Trail point 3
network field with relatively low velocity and keeps listening
to data report packets. The mobile sink stops at some places
[4, 2, 3] Trail point 2 [4, 4, 2]
called “trail points” for a short amount of time. Next, it
broadcasts a message called “trail message” to the whole Obstacle
network and simultaneously listens to data report packets. [3, 1, 3] [4, 5, 2]
Finally, it moves on to another trail point as shown in Figure 3.
The distance between any two consecutive trail points is Trail point 1
assumed to be the same by the authors in order to facilitate
the tracking of a mobile sink. The authors showed that the Figure 3: A network with a mobile sink [68].
networks which implemented sink mobility have a great
performance over networks that deployed static sink. The
authors also revealed that the movement of the sink in a that the sink mobility presented the sink replication attack
circular pattern outperforms each of random, angular, and in which a malicious sink claims that it is the intended one.
linear patterns. This may reveal confidential data for the public or prevent it
Even though the recent research revealed that lever- from reaching the authorized sink. Therefore, the researcher
aging mobility into the WSNs has a great or promising should consider this attack along with the other associated
performance, the sink mobility introduced several issues that attacks when designing secure routing protocols implement-
require more consideration study. The first of these issues is ing sink mobility. The second issue is the minimization of the
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 9

(a) Mobile sink with a random movement (b) Mobile sink moving in a predetermined (c) Mobile sink moving in a predetermined
circular path rectangular path

Static node Static sink Static node Static sink Static node Static sink
Dynamic node Dynamic sink Dynamic node Dynamic sink Dynamic node Dynamic sink

(d) Static sink and a subset of dynamic nodes (e) Mobile sink and a subset of dynamic (f) Static sink and both mobile sink and
nodes subset of dynamic nodes

Figure 4: Different trajectory patterns and techniques for network dynamics.

overhead resulting from the frequent updates of new location routes. Next, the collision may be increased when several
information. The third issue is what is the optimal number of sources send their data to the sink due to the fact that many
mobile sinks as a function of sensor nodes deployed into the paths from different sources to the sink have overlapping
network field? The last issue, but not least, is the optimization links. In addition, the nodes in the neighborhood of the
of moving trajectory for a mobile sink since it is an NP- sink node consume their energy faster because they are
hard problem [69]. This issue also includes finding out the responsible for forwarding their own data along with the
proper moving trajectory pattern such as random, circular, or received data from other nodes. Consuming the energy of the
triangular as seen in Figures 4(a), 4(b), and 4(c), respectively. neighboring nodes faster may result in a network partition
In addition, we need to study the performance when in which the sink node is in one partition and the other
dynamic nodes together with a static sink or mobile sink nodes are in another partition as visualized in Figure 5 by the
are deployed in a network field as depicted in Figures 4(d) authors of [30].
and 4(e), respectively. Furthermore, we need to explore the The network partition renders the network ineffective and
performance related to a hybrid combination of static and reduces the network life time. To clarify the point, Figure 5
mobile sinks in environments with static and dynamic regular visualizes the energy of the network nodes deploying either
nodes as shown in Figure 4(f). Consequently, supporting the Min-Hop or the PEW routing protocols. The network
mobility into routing protocols can be shown as an interesting model used by any of these two protocols is depicted in
area for future studies. Figure 5(a). It has a single static sink at (0, 0) in 𝑥𝑦-
coordinates, and it has also 300 nodes that are distributed
6.3. Multiple Sources and Sinks. Most of the current routing randomly all over the network field. Figure 5(b) surrounds
protocols forward data from a single source to a single sink. the neighbor nodes of the sink by a dashed circle. The energy
When a source node has data to share with the sink, it of these nodes is consumed faster than the other nodes in the
forwards the data to the sink node over an explored path network as visualized in Figures 5(c) and 5(d) for the Min-
between them. This may have several impacts on the deployed Hop and PEW protocols, respectively.
network. The network life time may be reduced due to Fortunately, the aforementioned problems resulted from
consuming a lot of nodes’ energy over long and multi-hop deploying only a single sink seen in Figure 6(a) which can
10 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

(a) Network model (b) Nodes consumed faster in the network model

0.9
1 0.8 0.9
Normalized energy

0.9 1

Normalized energy
0.8 0.7 0.9
0.7 0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6 0.7
0.5 0.5 0.6
0.4 0.5 0.7
0.3 0.4 0.4
0.2 0.3
0.1 0.3 0.2 0.6
0 0.1
15 0.2 0
15 0.5
10
12 14 16 18 20 0.1 20
𝑦 se 5 6 8 10
10
𝑦 se 14 1618
gme 0 0 2 4 0 gme 5 8 1012 0.4
nt ent nt 4 6 ent
𝑥 segm 0 0 2 𝑥 segm

(c) Energy visualization of Min-Hop found in [30] (d) Energy visualization of PEW found in [30]

Figure 5: Remaining nodes’ energy visualization in both Min-Hop and PEW networks.

be elevated by implementing multisinks. For example, the of the nodes with sink mobility is better than the remaining
DSSRP protocol [58] implements two static sinks and reveals energy of nodes without sink mobility. This extends the
a promising performance over a single static sink. Also, life time of the deployed network. However, forwarding
networks supporting several sinks may be entailed to accept metrics for moving the mobile sinks and optimal number
several events simultaneously. of sinks need more explorations and studies. Furthermore,
In addition, these network configurations increase the the securely underlying scenarios should be considered.
reliability and improve the network life time. However, Thus, implementing multisinks into network fields can be
leveraging the multisinks into the networks introduces new considered as a new area of exploration.
issues including the number of sinks, deploying mobile or
static sinks, and hybrid sinks. Because the number of sinks 6.4. Dynamic Holes Bypassing. Dynamic holes occur due to
has a great influence on the network performance, it should overutilizing optimal paths. Figure 7(a) reveals that when a
be studied carefully to find out the optimal number of sinks source node A always sends its data over an optimal path
as a function of the network size. It is also required to study to the sink, it may result in energy holes as depicted in
whether to (1) implement only static sinks as in Figure 6(b) Figure 7(b). An energy hole or energy gap is a region in
which has four static sinks, as an example, distributed at the the network field that is not covered with radio signals. The
corners of the network field, (2) deploy only mobile nodes increasing number of energy gaps reduces network life time
as depicted in Figure 6(c) which has four mobile sinks that and may render network ineffective. Therefore, the rest of this
move in a circular patterns as an example, or (3) leverage section presents possible bypassing solutions that elevate the
or combine both static and mobile sinks into the network problems resulted from energy holes.
field as shown in Figure 6(d) which has four static sinks and Most of the current routing protocols such as [19, 20, 23–
one mobile sink. As an example in this aspect of mobility, 25, 28–30, 58] bypass energy holes by exploring new path to
Suganthi et al. [70] deployed the multisinks technique in the sink node as shown in Figure 8(a), but it may result in an
which they use three mobile sinks along with a static sink. extra delay.
They confine one mobile sink to circular pattern mobility, This solution works fine when a source node (e.g., node
the second one to rectangular pattern mobility, and the other A) has a connection with the sink node but it fails when a
one to constant speed mobility. They measure the remaining source node is disconnected from the sink node. For example,
energy of the deployed nodes without sink mobility and with the nodes surrounded by a dash,ed circle form a network
sink mobility. The authors revealed that the remaining energy partition, and they cannot deliver their data to the sink node.
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 11

(a) Wireless sensor network with single static sink (b) Wireless sensor network with many static sinks

Random move

Sensor node Dynamic sink Sensor node Dynamic sink

Source node Low bandwidth links Source node Low bandwidth links
Static sink Static sink
(c) Wireless sensor network with multidynamic sinks (d) Wireless sensor network with hybrid sinks

Figure 6: Different multisinks and multisources techniques.

To overcome this shortcoming, the network dynamic should The second aspect is to implement a mobile sink with
be implemented into networks. The network dynamic can static nodes. The mobile sink will move around to collect data
be introduced into the network by implementing one of the from all sensors in the network field as seen in Figure 8(c) in
following three aspects: which the sink goes into the region to collect the data. This
will bypass the energy hole but introduces an extra overhead
(1) small set of mobile nodes with a static sink,
due to the updates concerning new location information.
(2) static nodes with mobile sink, In addition, the mobile sink movement pattern should be
(3) small set of mobile nodes, mobile sink, and static sink. defined as discussed in the network dynamics section.
The last aspect is to combine the static sink, mobile sink,
Implementing a small set of mobile nodes into a network
mobile nodes, and static nodes into network field as shown in
field can cover energy hole regions with radio signals by
Figure 8(d) as an example. In this aspect, a source node has
moving one or more mobile nodes towards these regions as
more choices to bypass an energy hole varying from exploring
depicted in Figure 8(b). This solution introduces new issues
new route to adjust topology changes required to cover the
that need a further consideration and study. These issues are
holes. However, the performance- and security-related issues
summarized as follows: which mobile nodes should be moved
resulted from combining these different technologies need
towards energy hole regions, when they should be moved,
extra studies and exploration. In addition, more studies are
and where exactly they should be moved. For example, which
needed to know how to adjust topology changes resulted from
of the nodes B, C, or D in Figure 8(b) will be moved towards
holes.
the indicated region? One solution to these issues can be
achieved by giving a weight to each mobile node. The weight
should be a function of the distance between the mobile node 6.5. Secure Routing. WSNs are used in several applications
and the center of the region to be covered. Also, the weight such as homeland security, military, and healthcare in which
should consider the priority of each energy gap region. In the security is essential. Such networks are subject to several
addition, it should have a concern about the current area routing attacks which include sinkhole attack, selective for-
covered by the mobile node. warding attacks, wormhole attack, Hello flood attack, Sybil
12 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

le
y ho
g
er
En

A A

Sensor node Sensor node

Base station Base station
Low bandwidth links Low bandwidth links
(a) Overutilization of energy efficiency (b) Energy hole

Figure 7: Energy efficiency and energy holes.

B
le
ho
le
ho

Move y Move
erg
gy

X En
er
En

C
A A

(a) Energy hole bypassing through finding another path to (b) Energy hole bypassing through moving regular sensor
sink towards the hole

B
le

le
ho

ho
gy

gy

Move
er

er
En

En

Move
D
C
A A

Sensor node Dynamic sink Sensor node Dynamic sink

Dynamic node Low bandwidth links Dynamic node Low bandwidth links
Static sink Static sink
(c) Energy hole bypassing through deploying a mobile sink (d) Energy hole bypassing through hybrid mobility of both sink
and regular sensors

Figure 8: Different techniques for energy holes bypassing.

International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 13

Drops all received Selectively drop

packets packets
A A

B B

Network field Network field

(a) Sinkhole attack launched when the adversary puts himself (b) Selective forwarding attack launched when the adversary
on the forwarding path puts himelf on the forwarding path

Network field
Network field
R2
ge
essa
el lo m Attacker
H

R1

Sensor node Packets Sensor node Packets

Sink node/base station Low latency bandwidth link Sink node/base station Low latency bandwidth link
Virtual adversary node Low bandwidth link Virtual adversary node Low bandwidth link
(c) Wormhole attack using two adversaries (d) Hello flood attack scenario using a laptop

Figure 9: Different routing attacks on WSNs.

attack, Denial-of-service (DoS) attack, and a sink replication Another type of WSN attack on routing protocols is Sybil
attack associated with mobile sinks. Figure 9 depicts different attack which reduces the fault tolerance, topology main-
types of routing attacks. tenance, and resource utilization and weakens the routing
Figure 9(a) shows a sinkhole attack scenario that is mechanism. In this type of attack, a node steals the identities
launched when an adversary puts himself on the forwarding of many nodes to pretend to be as them to degrade the data
path. Once the adversary is on the forwarding path, he will integrity and security of the network. But in reality, it is only a
refuse to forward any received packets. Figure 9(b) depicts single malicious node injected cleverly into the specific sensor
the selective forwarding attack in which the attacker puts network to alter valuable information [47, 71].
himself on the forwarding path and then drops certain The DoS attack in WSNs can occur intentionally by
packets and prevents them from reaching the sink node. attackers or unintentionally due to unexpected node failure.
Figure 9(c) visualizes the wormhole attack launched with The unexpected node failure may result from various soft-
two adversaries that share the low latency link denoted by a ware bugs, exhausted power supply system, environmental
dashed line. One adversary attracts nodes in its neighborhood disaster, and complication in data transmission and commu-
to send their data to the adversary. When the adversary nication, or even intentional intruder attack may execute DoS
receives data, he will forward the received data to the other attack. Often, attackers try to weaken or destroy a network
adversary which in turn conveys it to the nodes in its or cause an interruption in secure data communication by
region. Figure 9(d) depicts the Hello flood attack which sending loads of unnecessary data packets to the victim nodes
is launched when an attacker, equipped with a laptop that and therefore exhibit DoS attack. Different types of DoS
has a high-quality radio signal, sends Hello messages to the attacks may take place at different network layers. At physical
network field. Once a node receives a Hello message, it marks layer, it may cause jamming and tampering, at data link layer,
the attacker as its parent. When the node has data that it it causes exhaustion and data collision, at network layer, it
wants to share, it sends it to the attacker, but because the causes misdirection and negligence of data, and at transport
attacker is far away, the node sends its data into oblivion layer, it could perform data flooding and malicious attack
[46, 71]. [71].
14 International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks

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