A Trust-Based Multipath Congestion-Aware Routing Technique to Curb Wormhole Attacks for Mobile Nodes in WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have emerged as a critical technology in diverse applications, ranging from environmental monitoring to precision agriculture. However, the inherent limitations of WSNs, such as constrained energy resources and limited bandwidth, pose significant challenges for reliable data transmission. Furthermore, the increasing vulnerability of WSNs to security threats, such as malicious node attacks and data breaches, necessitates robust security mechanisms. This paper proposes a novel composite routing technique for WSNs that integrates trust attributes and congestion-aware information to enhance network performance, security, and energy efficiency. The proposed approach leverages trust metrics to evaluate the trustworthiness of nodes based on their past behaviour, communication patterns, and adherence to network protocols. By incorporating trust assessment into the routing decision-making process, the technique aims to mitigate the impact of wormhole attacks and ensure data delivery through reliable paths. Additionally, the proposed routing protocol considers network congestion levels to select routes with minimal traffic, thereby improving data throughput and reducing packet delays. The congestion-aware component dynamically adapts to changing network conditions, ensuring efficient resource utilization and maximizing network lifetime. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed composite routing technique outperforms existing approaches in terms of packet delivery ratio by 92.1%, energy efficiency by 3.1j, end-to-end latency by 85%, route disjointedness by 88.7 and resilience to various attacks, making it a promising solution for secure and efficient communication in resource-constrained WSN environments.