Countermeasures for Attacks

There are two major types of synchronization protocols. The single hop protocols, RBS, and the multi-hop protocols, TPSN and FTSP. In either case, the goal is to authenticate the synchronization messaging. Redundancy as well as nodes refusing to pass on bad information are other ways to combat synchronization attacks.For single hop networks, the challenge for synchronization security is to make sure the sending node is not compromised to send out erroneous timing information. This can be accomplished by an authentication process. Either an authentication process or the use of a different private key between the sending node and each receiving node should be used for security.In the multi-hop case an attack on a node close to the root could compromise a large portion of the network. The use of private keys in this case could also be used, but there are a few other idea. For FTSP, redundancy could be introduced so that it does not calculate its timing from just one neighbor, but from several. It could then determine if there is a corrupt node. If a node was suspicious that it was receiving bad synchronization data, it could cease retransmission of the data. This would stop the desynchronization from propagating throughout the network.Once again, none of the protocols discussed were designed with security in mind. Therefore it is easy to compromise a nodes timing and have the erroneous timing propagate through the network, especially on multi-hop networks. Authentication, redundancy, and refusal to transmit corrupt synchronization information are ways to combat attacks. The tradeoff being that these countermeasures require overhead and will induce more network traffic, but it may be a small price to pay to keep synchronization attacks from compromising the network.