A secure and lightweight ad-hoc routing algorithm for personal networks

Over the past few years, there has been increasing interest in utilizing Personal Area Networks (PANs) to offer users innovative and personalized services. This interest is a consequence of the widespread use of mobile devices such as laptops, mobile phones, PDAs, digital cameras, wireless headsets, etc. to carry out a variety of user-centric tasks. The PAN itself is built upon an ad-hoc network where devices trust their neighbors to route their packets. The cooperative nature of ad-hoc networks allows malicious nodes to easily cripple the network by inserting false route information, replaying old messages, modifying messages of other nodes, etc. An applicable area still under research, and the focus of this paper, is secure routing protocols for ad-hoc networks. To achieve availability in the PAN, the routing protocol used must be robust against both dynamically changing topology and malicious attacks. However, the heterogeneous nature of Personal Network (PN) devices means that traditional security mechanisms are too resource intensive to be sufficient by themselves. This paper describes a new ad-hoc secure routing protocol for Personal Networks (PNs), suitable in a limited multi-hop scenario. This protocol is based on ADOV and relies on efficient cryptographic primitives to safeguard the security and privacy of PN users. Following that, a number of attacks in the area of ad-hoc networks are discussed, and it is shown that the new algorithm protects against multiple un-coordinated active attackers, in spite of compromised nodes in the network

Design & Evaluation of Path-based Reputation System for MANET Routing

Most of the existing reputation systems in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) consider only node reputations when selecting routes. Reputation and trust are therefore generally ensured within a one-hop distance when routing decisions are made, which often fail to provide the most reliable, trusted route. In this report, we first summarize the background studies on the security of MANET. Then, we propose a system that is based on path reputation, which is computed from reputation and trust values of each and every node in the route. The use of path reputation greatly enhances the reliability of resulting routes. The detailed system architecture and components design of the proposed mechanism are carefully described on top of the AODV (Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector) routing protocol. We also evaluate the performance of the proposed system by simulating it on top of AODV. Simulation experiments show that the proposed scheme greatly improves network throughput in the midst of misbehavior nodes while requires very limited message overhead. To our knowledge, this is the first path-based reputation system proposal that may be implemented on top of a non-source based routing scheme such as AODV

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey

This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols, user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed, use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are some text overlaps with the previous submissio

Secure Routing in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged as a promising concept to meet the challenges in next-generation networks such as providing flexible, adaptive, and reconfigurable architecture while offering cost-effective solutions to the service providers. Unlike traditional Wi-Fi networks, with each access point (AP) connected to the wired network, in WMNs only a subset of the APs are required to be connected to the wired network. The APs that are connected to the wired network are called the Internet gateways (IGWs), while the APs that do not have wired connections are called the mesh routers (MRs). The MRs are connected to the IGWs using multi-hop communication. The IGWs provide access to conventional clients and interconnect ad hoc, sensor, cellular, and other networks to the Internet. However, most of the existing routing protocols for WMNs are extensions of protocols originally designed for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and thus they perform sub-optimally. Moreover, most routing protocols for WMNs are designed without security issues in mind, where the nodes are all assumed to be honest. In practical deployment scenarios, this assumption does not hold. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of security issues in WMNs and then particularly focuses on secure routing in these networks. First, it identifies security vulnerabilities in the medium access control (MAC) and the network layers. Various possibilities of compromising data confidentiality, data integrity, replay attacks and offline cryptanalysis are also discussed. Then various types of attacks in the MAC and the network layers are discussed. After enumerating the various types of attacks on the MAC and the network layer, the chapter briefly discusses on some of the preventive mechanisms for these attacks.Comment: 44 pages, 17 figures, 5 table

A Trust and Node Capability Model for Reliable and Secure MANET Communication

The Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a rapidly deployable network. That is valuable for industrial and domestic applications due to flexible, mobile, and wireless communication. But the network is constrained with resources and security. In this paper, we are presenting a node capability based trusted routing named TNC-AODV for MANET. It is a hybrid approach for maintaining route reliability and security. The model is composed of the property of node capability and Trust. The Node capability is defined by the quality of service parameters like remaining energy, available bandwidth, buffer length, and mobility pattern. The aim is to ensure the discovery of reliable routes. Additionally, the trust is implemented by using a local and global trust for securing the network. The TNC-AODV is implemented through modification of AODV routing. That routing technique has been tested on three security threats namely Black-hole, wormhole, and DOS flooding attack. The simulation has been carried out using the NS2 simulator. The experimental results demonstrate that TNC-AODV provides security against attacks. Additionally, improve the packet delivery ratio, and throughput. Finally, the possible and feasible future extension of the work has also been proposed