Privacy-preserving scheme for mobile ad hoc networks.

This paper proposes a decentralized trust establishment protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), where nodes establish security associations. In order to achieve privacy and security, we use homomorphic encryption and polynomial intersection so as to find the intersection of two sets. The first set represents a list of recommenders of the initiator and the second set is a list of trusted recommenders of the responder. The intersection of the sets represents a list of nodes that recommend the first node and their recommendations are trusted by the second node. In our experimental results we show that our scheme is effective even if there are 30 trusted nodes

A Candour-based Trust and Reputation Management System for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The decentralized administrative controlled-nature of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) presents security vulnerabilities which can lead to attacks such as malicious modification of packets. To enhance security in MANETs, Trust and Reputation Management systems (TRM) have been developed to serve as measures in mitigating threats arising from unusual behaviours of nodes. In this paper we propose a candour-based trust and reputation system which measures and models reputation and trust propagation in MANETs. In the proposed model Dirichlet Probability Distribution is employed in modelling the individual reputation of nodes and the trust of each node is computed based on the node’s actual network performance and the quality of the recommendations it gives about other nodes. Cooperative nodes in our model will be rewarded for expanding their energy in forwarding packets for other nodes or for disseminating genuine recommenda-tions. Uncooperative nodes are isolated and denied the available network resources. We employed the Ruffle algorithm which will ensure that cooperative nodes are allowed to activate sleep mode when their service is not required in forwarding packets for its neighbouring trustworthy nodes. The proposed TRM system enshrines fairness in its mode of operation as well as creating an enabling environment free from bias. It will also ensure a connected and capacity preserving network of trustworthy node

Trust Evaluation for Embedded Systems Security research challenges identified from an incident network scenario

This paper is about trust establishment and trust evaluations techniques. A short background about trust, trusted computing and security in embedded systems is given. An analysis has been done of an incident network scenario with roaming users and a set of basic security needs has been identified. These needs have been used to derive security requirements for devices and systems, supporting the considered scenario. Using the requirements, a list of major security challenges for future research regarding trust establishment in dynamic networks have been collected and elaboration on some different approaches for future research has been done.This work was supported by the Knowledge foundation and RISE within the ARIES project

Trust model for certificate revocation in Ad hoc networks

In this paper we propose a distributed trust model for certificate revocation in Adhoc networks. The proposed model allows trust to be built over time as the number of interactions between nodes increase. Furthermore, trust in a node is defined not only in terms of its potential for maliciousness, but also in terms of the quality of the service it provides. Trust in nodes where there is little or no history of interactions is determined by recommendations from other nodes. If the nodes in the network are selfish, trust is obtained by an exchange of portfolios. Bayesian networks form the underlying basis for this model

A Survey on Wireless Sensor Network Security

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in the research community due their wide range of applications. Due to distributed nature of these networks and their deployment in remote areas, these networks are vulnerable to numerous security threats that can adversely affect their proper functioning. This problem is more critical if the network is deployed for some mission-critical applications such as in a tactical battlefield. Random failure of nodes is also very likely in real-life deployment scenarios. Due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes, traditional security mechanisms with large overhead of computation and communication are infeasible in WSNs. Security in sensor networks is, therefore, a particularly challenging task. This paper discusses the current state of the art in security mechanisms for WSNs. Various types of attacks are discussed and their countermeasures presented. A brief discussion on the future direction of research in WSN security is also included.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Image scoring in ad-hoc networks : an investigation on realistic settings

Encouraging cooperation in distributed Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) remains an open problem. Emergent application domains such as Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) are characterised by constraints including sparse connectivity and a lack of direct interaction history. Image scoring, a simple model of reputation proposed by Nowak and Sigmund, exhibits low space and time complexity and promotes cooperation through indirect reciprocity, in which an agent can expect cooperation in the future without repeat interactions with the same partners. The low overheads of image scoring make it a promising technique for ad-hoc networking domains. However, the original investigation of Nowak and Sigmund is limited in that it (i) used a simple idealised setting, (ii) did not consider the effects of incomplete information on the mechanism’s efficacy, and (iii) did not consider the impact of the network topology connecting agents. We address these limitations by investigating more realistic values for the number of interactions agents engage in, and show that incomplete information can cause significant errors in decision making. As the proportion of incorrect decisions rises, the efficacy of image scoring falls and selfishness becomes more dominant. We evaluate image scoring on three different connection topologies: (i) completely connected, which closely approximates Nowak and Sigmund’s original setup, (ii) random, with each pair of nodes connected with a constant probability, and (iii) scale-free, which is known to model a number of real world environments including MANETs

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

A Formal Framework for Modeling Trust and Reputation in Collective Adaptive Systems

Trust and reputation models for distributed, collaborative systems have been studied and applied in several domains, in order to stimulate cooperation while preventing selfish and malicious behaviors. Nonetheless, such models have received less attention in the process of specifying and analyzing formally the functionalities of the systems mentioned above. The objective of this paper is to define a process algebraic framework for the modeling of systems that use (i) trust and reputation to govern the interactions among nodes, and (ii) communication models characterized by a high level of adaptiveness and flexibility. Hence, we propose a formalism for verifying, through model checking techniques, the robustness of these systems with respect to the typical attacks conducted against webs of trust.Comment: In Proceedings FORECAST 2016, arXiv:1607.0200

AMISEC: Leveraging Redundancy and Adaptability to Secure AmI Applications

Security in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) poses too many challenges due to the inherently insecure nature of wireless sensor nodes. However, there are two characteristics of these environments that can be used effectively to prevent, detect, and confine attacks: redundancy and continuous adaptation. In this article we propose a global strategy and a system architecture to cope with security issues in AmI applications at different levels. Unlike in previous approaches, we assume an individual wireless node is vulnerable. We present an agent-based architecture with supporting services that is proven to be adequate to detect and confine common attacks. Decisions at different levels are supported by a trust-based framework with good and bad reputation feedback while maintaining resistance to bad-mouthing attacks. We also propose a set of services that can be used to handle identification, authentication, and authorization in intelligent ambients. The resulting approach takes into account practical issues, such as resource limitation, bandwidth optimization, and scalability