A New Cluster-based Wormhole Intrusion detection algorithm for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

TLDR

Multi‑hop wireless systems rely on node cooperation, making them vulnerable to wormhole attacks that replay legitimate packets and bypass cryptographic checks, and existing detection methods often require specialized hardware. The paper proposes a cluster‑based countermeasure to mitigate wormhole attacks in MANETs. The method clusters nodes to detect and mitigate wormhole attacks without relying on directional antennas or other hardware. MATLAB simulations show the algorithm effectively detects wormhole attacks.

Abstract

In multi-hop wireless systems, the need for cooperation among nodes to relay each other's packets exposes them to a wide range of security attacks. A particularly devastating attack is the wormhole attack, where a malicious node records control traffic at one location and tunnels it to another compromised node, possibly far away, which replays it locally. Routing security in ad hoc networks is often equated with strong and feasible node authentication and lightweight cryptography. Unfortunately, the wormhole attack can hardly be defeated by crypto graphical measures, as wormhole attackers do not create separate packets. They simply replay packets already existing on the network, which pass the cryptographic checks. Existing works on wormhole detection have often focused on detection using specialized hardware, such as directional antennas, etc. In this paper, we present a cluster based counter-measure for the wormhole attack, that alleviates these drawbacks and efficiently mitigates the wormhole attack in MANET. Simulation results on MATLab exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in detecting wormhole attacks.