MIAMI: Methods and infrastructure for the assurance of measurement information

Adversaries do not need to attack traditional security services to affect the operation of a sensor network, but may deliberately perturb the measurement environment, the measurement method, or the measurement infrastructure. These types of attacks, which are attacks on the process of measurement(PoM attacks), are unique to sensor networks and cannot be addressed through the usual security methods. Hence, to complement traditional security services, defense mechanisms are needed to protect the sensor network from PoM attacks. This paper lays out a framework for assuring the validity of measurement data in sensor networks. This framework, which we call the Methods and Infrastructure for the Assurance of Measurement Information (MIAMI), is centered around the development of the PoM monitor. The PoM monitor is responsible for preventing corrupted measurement data from ever reaching core sensor services. We map out several mechanisms for that might be useful for building the PoM monitor on sensor nodes, and examine how it would operate by applying the techniques to the detection of wireless interference in a sensor network.