Cooperative security-enforcement routing in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

The characteristics of mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) introduce vulnerabilities to malicious attacks varying from passive eavesdropping to active interfering. With routing being a critical aspect for MANET, routing security is drawing increased attention. Yet, to date there is little work published in this area. We propose a cooperative security-enforcement routing (CSER) protocol that intends to provide effective identification of misbehaviors on ad hoc routing, detection latency reduction and approximate location of the misbehaving node on a path. We introduce the concept of a security domain, which is composed of a set of hosts trusting each other and which can be assured a certain level of security. Our protocol requires that the nodes on a route from the same security domain cooperate as security monitor and enforcement points. Simulation results show that the protocol achieves good detection accuracy, lower detection latency and lower end-to-end delay than some other approaches. Planned future work is also described.