A Game Theoretical Analysis of Localization Security in Wireless Sensor Networks with Adversaries

Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) support data collection and distributed data processing by means of very small sensing devices that are easy to tamper and cloning: therefore classical security solutions based on access control and strong authentication are difficult to deploy. In this paper we look at the problem of assessing security of node localization. In particular, we analyze the scenario in which Verifiable Multilateration (VM) is used to localize nodes and a malicious node (i.e., the adversary) try to masquerade as non-malicious. We resort to non-cooperative game theory and we model this scenario as a two-player game. We analyze the optimal players' strategy and we show that the VM is indeed a proper mechanism to reduce fake positions.