Secure multi-path data delivery in sensor networks

In network communication, Byzantine attacks, i.e., attacks due to packet dropping and cheating (modified packets), are usually difficult to guard against. Several multipath packet routing schemes have been recently proposed to recover lost packets due to packet dropping (caused by path failures or attacks), but no effective solutions have been proposed to counter cheating attacks. To this end, we propose a novel approach in multi-path routing to improve resilience to Byzantine attacks. In our approach, we present a multi-path source routing scheme based on Prüfer number which allows the receiver to identify packet dropping paths. We also propose a multi-path coding scheme based on Reed-Solomon error-correcting coding scheme which allows the receiver to identify paths that cheat. If (n, k) RS coding scheme is used, our v(≥ 3) node-disjoint paths routing scheme is resilient to t = (n - k)/2 faulty paths, i.e., up to t faulty paths can be identified and the original message can be recovered. Our scheme does not involve interactive communications between the source and the destination. In addition, we propose a path selection scheme which enables a node to select the most reliable paths (isolating faulty nodes) to transmit data. Our robustness analysis also discusses the tradeoffs between using single path routing and multi-path routing.