Detection and Prevention of Wormhole Attack in Mobile Adhoc Networks
Shalini Jain, Satbir Jain · International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering · 2009
Wireless networks are suspectible to many attacks, including an attack known as the wormhole attack. The wormhole attack is very powerful, and preventing the attack has proven to be very difficult. A strategic placement of the wormhole can result in a significant breakdown in communication across a wireless network. In such attacks two or more malicious colluding nodes create a higher-level virtual tunnel in the network, which is employed to transport packets between the tunnel endpoints. These tunnels emulate shorter links in the network and so act as benefit to unsuspecting network nodes which by default seek shorter routes. This paper present a novel trust-based scheme for identifying and isolating nodes that create a wormhole in the network without engaging any cryptographic means. With the help of extensive simulations, we demonstrate that our scheme functions effectively in the presence of malicious colluding nodes and does not impose any unnecessary conditions upon the network establishment and operation phase. An ad-hoc network is built, operated, and maintained by its constituent wireless nodes. These nodes generally have a limited transmission range and so each node seeks the assistance of its neighbouring nodes in forwarding packets . In order, to establish routes between nodes, which are farther than a single hop, specially configured routing protocol are engaged. The unique feature of these protocols is their ability to trace routes in spite of a dynamic topology. The nodes in an ad-hoc network generally have limited battery power and so active routing protocols endeavor to save upon this, by discovering routes only when they are essentially required. In contrast, proactive routing protocols continuously establish and maintain routes, so as to avoid the latency that occurs during new route discoveries. Both types of routing protocols require persistent cooperative behaviour, with intermediate nodes primarily contributing to