Proceedings Article | 10 May 2012
Proc. SPIE. 8407, Multisensor, Multisource Information Fusion: Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications 2012
KEYWORDS: Defense and security, Human-machine interfaces, Sensors, Control systems, Computer simulations, Sensor networks, Analytical research, Environmental sensing, Situational awareness sensors, Information assurance
Information assurance is a critical component of any organization's data network. Trustworthiness of the sensor data,
especially in the case of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), is an important metric for any application that requires
situational awareness. In a WSN, information packets are typically not encrypted and the nodes themselves could be
located in the open, leaving them susceptible to tampering and physical degradation. In order to develop a method to
assess trustworthiness in WSNs, we have utilized statistical trustworthiness metrics and have implemented an agentbased
simulation platform that can perform various trustworthiness measurement experiments for various WSN
operating scenarios. Different trust metrics are used against multiple vulnerabilities to detect anomalous behavior and
node failure as well as malicious attacks. The simulation platform simulates WSNs with various topologies, routing
algorithms, battery and power consumption models, and various types of attacks and defense mechanisms. Additionally,
we adopt information entropy based techniques to detect anomalous behavior. Finally, detection techniques are fused to
provide various metrics, and various trustworthiness metrics are fused to provide aggregate trustworthiness for the
purpose of situational awareness.
