Security Challenges, Mitigation Strategies, and Future Trends in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Review

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) represent an innovative technology that integrates compact, energy-efficient sensors with wireless communication functionalities, facilitating instantaneous surveillance and data gathering from the surrounding environment. WSNs are utilized across diverse domains, such as environmental monitoring, industrial automation, healthcare, smart agriculture, home automation, and beyond. Due to the inherent characteristics of WSNs they face many security challenges ranging from resource-based attacks, such as energy depletion or computational overload, to eavesdropping, interception, and tampering. Moreover, the dynamic and often ad-hoc deployment of sensors in varying environments increases their vulnerability to physical intrusion attacks, the distributed and collaborative nature of WSNs raises concerns about data integrity, as compromised nodes can potentially propagate misleading or malicious information throughout the network. In this article, we categorize WSN attacks, identifying vulnerabilities and corresponding mitigation strategies. We also explore current research directions in WSN security, emphasizing the challenges in addressing these issues.