Trust evaluation model with entropy-based weight assignment for malicious node’s detection in wireless sensor networks

Trust management is considered as an effective complementary mechanism to ensure the security of sensor networks. Based on historical behavior, the trust value can be evaluated and applied to estimate the reliability of the node. For the analysis of the possible attack behavior of malicious nodes, we proposed a trust evaluation model with entropy-based weight assignment for malicious node's detection in wireless sensor networks. To mitigate the malicious attacks such as packet dropping or packet modifications, multidimensional trust indicators are derived from communication between adjacent sensor nodes, and direct and indirect trust values will be estimated based on the corresponding behaviors of those sensor nodes. In order to improve the validity of trust quantification and ensure the objectivity of evaluation, the entropy weight method is applied to determine the proper value of the weight. Finally, the indirect trust value and direct trust value are synthesized to obtain the overall trust. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme performs well in terms of the identification of malicious node.