A multi-channel defense against jamming attacks in wireless sensor networks

Radio jamming in wireless sensor networks is an effective means by which an attacker can disrupt communication between sensor nodes. The purpose of such an attack can be to delay or prevent nodes from reporting their readings to the basestation, to deplete vital network resources such as energy, or both. This paper presents MULEPRO (MULti-channel Exfiltration PROtocol), a fully distributed network based protocol designed to rapidly exfiltrate data from a jammed area. MULEPRO targets sensor network applications that require an immediate and robust response to radio jamming denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. It works by automatically and efficiently assigning nodes to different channels in the jammed area in order to defeat an attacker. We have extensively evaluated MULEPRO under avariety of attack configurations. These tests show that even when the attacker uses a channel hopping strategy MULEPRO can effectively exfiltrate data.