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A survey: energy exhausting attacks in MAC protocols in WBANs

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Abstract

Because the sensors of wireless body area networks (WBANs) have limited battery power, many studies have focused on energy efficient medium access control (MAC) protocols to extend the lifetime of the sensors. In addition, WBANs face energy-exhausting attacks, which force the sensors to consume battery power partially or thoroughly. These attacks occur mainly in the MAC layer and threaten severely the energy efficiency of MAC protocols in WBANs. Because the attacks are made abruptly and unexpectedly, the lives of human beings and the quality of health care services can be threatened. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the major types of energy exhausting attacks in MAC protocols in WBANs, and show how easily the attacks can cause energy exhaustion in different MAC protocols. This survey provides clues for future research into energy efficient MAC protocols in WBANs.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Korea University grant.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Science, Korea University, Room# 326A, The Second Science & Technology Building, Seojong-Ro 2511, Sejong Metropolitan City, 330-700, South Korea

    Minho Jo

  2. School of Information Engineering, Nanchang Institute of Technology, Nanchang, China

    Longzhe Han

  3. Faculty of Information Technology, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, Hung Yen, Vietnam

    Nguyen Duy Tan

  4. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, 1, 5-ka, Anam-dong, Sungbuk-ku, Seoul, 136-701, South Korea

    Hoh Peter In

Authors
  1. Minho Jo
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  2. Longzhe Han
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  3. Nguyen Duy Tan
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  4. Hoh Peter In
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Correspondence to Minho Jo or Hoh Peter In.

Additional information

This paper was supported in part by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. 2011-0009454), and by Seoul R&BD Program (WR080951), and by Next-Generation Information Computing Development Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2012M3C4A7033345).

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Jo, M., Han, L., Tan, N.D. et al. A survey: energy exhausting attacks in MAC protocols in WBANs. Telecommun Syst 58, 153–164 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-014-9897-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-014-9897-0

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