On Optimal Antijamming Strategies in Sensor Networks

Physical layer radio jamming is a serious security threat to a wireless sensor network since the network relies on open wireless radio channels. A radio jammer is typically strategic and chooses its jamming strategy in response to the possible defense strategy taken by the sensor network. In this paper we model the interaction between the sensor network and the attacker as a noncooperative nonzero-sum static game. In such a game, the sensor network has a set of strategies of controlling its probability of wireless channel access and the attacker manipulates its jamming by controlling its jamming probability after sensing a transmission activity. We propose an algorithm for computing the optimal strategies for jamming attack and network defense. A critical issue is that there may exist a number of possible strategy profiles of Nash equilibria. To address this issue, we further propose to choose realistic Nash equilibria by applying the Pareto dominance and risk dominance. Our numerical results demonstrate that the strategies chosen by the Pareto dominance and risk dominance achieve the expected performance. Our results presented in the paper provide valuable defense guidance for wireless sensor networks against jamming attacks. Copyright © 2012 Yanmin Zhu and Yuan Jiang.