Energy-Efficient Framework to Mitigate Denial of Sleep Attacks in Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have the potential to revolutionize the field of biomedical monitoring. However, the design of Body Area Networks (BANs) faces numerous challenges, such as limited energy resources, efficient sensor node deployment, sensor node miniaturization, collaborative communication, customized application development, and maintaining network security against different attacks that target secrecy, integrity, and network availability. Traditional security mechanisms with high computation and communication overhead are infeasible in these networks due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes. In this work, we propose an energy-efficient framework to mitigate Denial of Sleep (DoS) attacks in WBANs. This framework incorporates three parameters: efficient energy utilization, repetitive event detection, and controlled transmissions. The aim is to increase network lifetime under DoS attacks. The results have shown that the proposed framework increases the network lifetime of Pulsed Medium Access Control (MAC) from 16 minutes to 50 minutes under complete DoS attacks. Furthermore, when 20 percent of the network is under attack, the network lifetime is extended to 6.5 days. Similarly, the network lifetime of the Medical Emergency Body (MEB) MAC has increased from 6 minutes to 35 minutes under severe DoS attacks. When only 20 percent of the network is under attack, the network lifetime is extended to 6 days.