Anonymous Secure Routing in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Although there are a large number of papers on secure routing in mobile ad-hoc networks, only a few consider the anonymity issue. In this paper, we define more strict requirements on the anonymity and security properties of the routing protocol, and notice that previous research works only provide Weak Location Privacy and Route Anonymity, and are vulnerable to specific attacks. Therefore, we propose the Anonymous Secure Routing (ASR) protocol that can provide additional properties on anonymity, i.e. Identity Anonymity and Strong Location Privacy, and at the same time ensure the security of discovered routes against various passive and active attacks. Detailed analysis shows that, ASR can achieve both anonymity and security properties, as defined in the requirements, of the routing protocol in mobile ad-hoc networks

A novel solution for achieving anonymity in wireless ad hoc networks

A mobile ad hoc network consists of mobile nodes that can move freely in an open environment. Communicating nodes in a wireless and mobile ad hoc network usually seek the help of other intermediate nodes to establish communication channels. In such an open environment, malicious intermediate nodes can be a threat to the security and/or anonymity of the exchanged data between the mobile nodes. While data encryption can protect the content exchanged between nodes, routing information may reveal valuable information about end users and their relationships. The main purposes of this paper are to study the possibility of achieving anonymity in ad hoc networks, and propose an anonymous routing protocol, similar to onion routing concept used in wired networks. Our protocol includes a mechanism to establish a trust among mobile nodes while avoiding untrustworthy nodes during the route discovery process. The major objective of our protocol is to allow only trustworthy intermediate nodes to participate in the routing protocol without jeopardizing the anonymity of the communicating nodes. We present our scheme, and report on its performance using an extensive set of simulation set of experiments using ns-2 simulator. Our results indicate clearly that anonymity can be achieved in mobile ad hoc networks, and the additional overhead of our scheme to DSR is reasonably low when compared to a non-secure DSR ad hoc routing protocol

A Survey on Anonymous On-Demand Routing Protocols for MANETs

At present Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) is used in many real time applications and hence such networks are vulnerable to different kinds of security threats. MANET networks suffered more from security attacks due to use of free wireless communication frequency spectrum and dynamic topology. Therefore it becomes very tough to provide security to MANET under different adversarial environments like battlefields. For MANET, anonymous communications are vital under the adversarial environments, in which the identification of nodes as well as routes is replaced by pseudonyms or random numbers for the purpose of protection. There are many protocols presented for anonymous communication security for MANET, which hide node identities and routes from exterior observers in order to provide anonymity protection. This paper presents review of various anonymous on demand routing protocols

A VANET privacy protection scheme based on fair blind signature and secret sharing algorithm

Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) is a traffic application of wireless sensor network, which is also a new mobile ad hoc networks composed of vehicle nodes, roadside units, service providers and other components. In VANET, data is transmitted by the wireless channel, which is subject to potential threat like information leak and data attack due to the openness and sensitivity of the auto organization network itself. How to ensure the identity privacy and trusted communication in VANETs is the key issue to be solved urgently. The existing work usually uses authentication mechanism, but the user’s privacy disclosure is inevitable during the authentication process. Some anonymous authentication schemes have been proposed to solve the problem of privacy disclosure regardless of considering anonymity abuse. However, anonymity abuse is also severe in VANET. In view of the above problems, this paper proposes a scheme based on fair blind signature and secret sharing algorithm. By security analysis and experiment, the scheme has been proved to be higher anonymity and higher efficiency

Security in heterogeneous wireless networks

The proliferation of a range of wireless devices, from the cheap low power resource starved sensor nodes to the ubiquitous cell phones and PDA\u27s has resulted in their use in many applications. Due to their inherent broadcast nature Security and Privacy in wireless networks is harder than the wired networks. Along with the traditional security requirements like confidentiality, integrity and non-repudiation new requirements like privacy and anonymity are important in wireless networks. These factors combined with the fact that nodes in a wireless network may have different resource availabilities and trust levels makes security in wireless networks extremely challenging. The functional lifetime of sensor networks in general is longer than the operational lifetime of a single node, due to limited battery power. Therefore to keep the network working multiple deployments of sensor nodes are needed. In this thesis, we analyze the vulnerability of the existing key predistribution schemes arising out of the repeated use of fixed key information through multiple deployments. We also develop SCON, an approach for key management that provides a significant improvement in security using multiple key pools. SCON performs better in a heterogeneous environment. We present a key distribution scheme that allows mobile sensor nodes to connect with stationary nodes of several networks. We develop a key distribution scheme for a semi ad-hoc network of cell phones. This scheme ensures that cell phones are able to communicate securely with each other when the phones are unable to connect to the base station. It is different from the traditional ad hoc networks because the phones were part of a centralized network before the base station ceased to work. This allows efficient distribution of key material making the existing schemes for ad hoc networks ineffective. In this thesis we present a mechanism for implementing authenticated broadcasts which ensure non-repudiation using identity based cryptography. We also develop a reputation based mechanism for the distributed detection and revocation of malicious cell phones. Schemes which use the cell phone for secure spatial authentication have also been presented

Pairing-based authentication protocol for V2G networks in smart grid

[EN] Vehicle to Grid (V2G) network is a very important component for Smart Grid (SG), as it offers new services that help the optimization of both supply and demand of energy in the SG network and provide mobile distributed capacity of battery storage for minimizing the dependency of non-renewable energy sources. However, the privacy and anonymity of users¿ identity, confidentiality of the transmitted data and location of the Electric Vehicle (EV) must be guaranteed. This article proposes a pairing-based authentication protocol that guarantees confidentiality of communications, protects the identities of EV users and prevents attackers from tracking the vehicle. Results from computing and communications performance analyses were better in comparison to other protocols, thus overcoming signaling congestion and reducing bandwidth consumption. The protocol protects EVs from various known attacks and its formal security analysis revealed it achieves the security goals.Roman, LFA.; Gondim, PRL.; Lloret, J. (2019). Pairing-based authentication protocol for V2G networks in smart grid. Ad Hoc Networks. 90:1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2018.08.0151169

Efficient network camouflaging in wireless networks

Camouflaging is about making something invisible or less visible. Network camouflaging is about hiding certain traffic information (e.g. traffic pattern, traffic flow identity, etc.) from internal and external eavesdroppers such that important information cannot be deduced from it for malicious use. It is one of the most challenging security requirements to meet in computer networks. Existing camouflaging techniques such as traffic padding, MIX-net, etc., incur significant performance degradation when protected networks are wireless networks, such as sensor networks and mobile ad hoc networks. The reason is that wireless networks are typically subject to resource constraints (e.g. bandwidth, power supply) and possess some unique characteristics (e.g. broadcast, node mobility) that traditional wired networks do not possess. This necessitates developing new techniques that take account of properties of wireless networks and are able to achieve a good balance between performance and security. In this three-part dissertation we investigate techniques for providing network camouflaging services in wireless networks. In the first part, we address a specific problem in a hierarchical multi-task sensor network, i.e. hiding the links between observable traffic patterns and user interests. To solve the problem, a temporally constant traffic pattern, called cover traffic pattern, is needed. We describe two traf- fic padding schemes that implement the cover traffic pattern and provide algorithms for achieving the optimal energy efficiencies with each scheme. In the second part, we explore the design of a MIX-net based anonymity system in mobile ad hoc networks. The objective is to hide the source-destination relationship with respect to each connection. We survey existing MIX route determination algorithms that do not account for dynamic network topology changes, which may result in high packet loss rate and large packet latency. We then introduce adaptive algorithms to overcome this problem. In the third part, we explore the notion of providing anonymity support at MAC layer in wireless networks, which employs the broadcast property of wireless transmission. We design an IEEE 802.11-compliant MAC protocol that provides receiver anonymity for unicast frames and offers better reliability than pure broadcast protocol