The quest for security in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

So far, research on mobile ad hoc networks has been forcused primarily on routing issues. Security, on the other hand, has been given a lower priority. This paper provides an overview of security problems for mobile ad hoc networks, distinguishing the threats on basic mechanisms and on security mechanisms. It then describes our solution to protect the security mechanisms. The original features of this solution include that (i) it is fully decentralized and (ii) all nodes are assigned equivalent roles.