# Clone Node Detection Attacks and Mitigation Mechanisms in Static Wireless Sensor Networks
###### Abstract  
The development of the wireless sensor networks technology commonly named WSNs has been gaining a significantly increased amount of attention from researchers over the last few decades. Its large number of sensor nodes is one of the features that makes it beneficial to the technology. The sensors can communicate with each other to form a network. These sensor nodes are generally used for diverse applications, such as pressure monitoring, fire detection, target tracking, and health monitoring, etc. However, the downside is that WSNs are often deployed in hostile, critical environments where they do not restrain physical access. This reality makes them incredibly vulnerable to clone node attacks or node replication attacks. The adversary can capture the legitimate sensor nodes, extract them and then collect some sensitive information, such as node ID, keys and perform a replication attack. This possibility will afterward facilitate the attacker to be able to take control of the whole network and execute the same functions as that of the authorized nodes. Based on this vulnerability, it is of great importance for researchers to invent a detection protocol for the clone attacks as well as a mitigation method. From all of the researches that have been published, a lot of them proposed some techniques to detect the clone node attacks and also to mitigate the attacks. However, almost none of them semantically focused on the security layer establishment. Based on this fact, we proposed an ontology-based approach Ontology for Replication Attacks in Static Wireless Sensor Networks \"ORASWSN\", which can semantically be used for the detection and mitigation of the attacks by taking into consideration the importance of using security layers. wireless sensor network; clone node detection; node replication attacks; mitigation of clone attacks +
Footnote †: journal: Computer Science  
0000-0002-4000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-0000-00000-0000-00000-0000-0000  
access is considered to be one of the most challenging issues they can face as its security can be compromised by an adversary, which can further execute a clone node attack. The clone node attack or the node replication attack is a security threat where an adversary re-programs or reproduces the WSN sensor nodes and joins the target network as if they were the legitimate nodes of that particular network. Due to cost considerations, these sensors lack tamper resistance hardware. Usually, when the attacker performs the clone node attack, the replicas are deployed into the WSN in pertinent and suitable positions. On this, the nodes are stationary (for static wireless sensor networks), which means that their location remains unchanged after deployment. This is different when it comes to mobile wireless sensor networks where the nodes are dynamic, with no fixed positions. From this perspective, it is obvious that the techniques used to detect the node replication attack in static WSN may differ from mobile WSN. Generally speaking, security in WSN whether static or mobile, becomes an extremely important factor since after the spreading or deployment, the nodes cannot be manually retained and observed (See [1, 2, 3] for more information about security in wireless sensor networks). Using the authentication technique is a big help, but the disadvantage is that the authentication data can be sent or can be accessed by any node in the network. Therefore, if a node is falsified by the attacker, i.e., a node that behaves as if it was legitimate, then the whole system can be jeopardized. Thusly, one of the methods we can use to help secure the WSN is to prevent the network from obtaining information from an unauthorized party (please see Section 4.2 for more information about authentication mechanisms). Another great factor that makes the WSN vulnerable is one of its basic security requirements, \"availability\".