Collaborative trust-based secure routing against colluding malicious nodes in multi-hop ad hoc networks

Abstract

The Trust-embedded AODV (T-AODV) routing protocol was designed by us to secure the ad hoc network from independent malicious nodes by finding a secure end-to-end route. In This work we have proposed an extension of T-AODV that can withstand attack by multiple malicious nodes acting in collusion to disrupt the network. It finds a secure end-to-end path free of malicious nodes and can effectively isolate a malicious entity trying to attack the network independently or in collusion with other malicious entities. In this respect, the solution is unique and, to the best of our knowledge, the first such solution proposed so far. We have shown the efficiency of our protocol by extensive simulation and also analyzed its security by evaluating different threat scenarios.