INFORMATION SECURITY AND OPERATIONAL RISKS OF WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS IN DAIRY FARM MONITORING SYSTEMS BASED ON TRUST MODELS

Abstract

The article focuses on information security and operational risk management of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in dairy farm monitoring systems based on trust models. It is shown that the intensive digitalization of dairy farming, including the deployment of sensor nodes for monitoring animal location and activity, behavioral and physiological indicators, microclimate parameters, and technological processes, significantly improves management efficiency but simultaneously increases the vulnerability of WSNs to cyber threats. Particular attention is paid to internal threats arising from compromised, unstable, or malfunctioning sensor nodes that may continue to participate in data transmission and distort monitoring results under conditions of limited computational and energy resources. The study emphasizes trust models as a core mechanism for reducing information security risks in WSN-based dairy farm monitoring systems. Trust-based approaches are analyzed as methods for dynamic assessment of node and route reliability using behavioral, network-level, and event-driven features. It is demonstrated that trust models complement traditional security mechanisms, such as cryptographic protection and intrusion detection systems, while being more suitable for resource-constrained WSN environments. The integration of trust estimation into a hierarchical architecture of “sensor nodes – gateways – data processing layer” is considered as a means to improve resilience against selective forwarding, data manipulation, and long-term exploitation of compromised nodes. Special attention is devoted to the balance between false positive and false negative decisions in trust-based security mechanisms. Excessively strict trust thresholds may increase false positives, leading to unjustified exclusion of legitimate sensor nodes and disruption of continuous monitoring, whereas overly permissive thresholds raise the risk of false negatives and prolonged use of compromised nodes. The article substantiates the need for adaptive trust threshold adjustment that accounts for technological regimes of the dairy farm, biological activity periods of animals, and dynamic network conditions. The presented results provide a scientific and methodological basis for the development of secure and reliable trust-based WSN monitoring systems in modern dairy farming.