Public Auditing Based Detection of Packet Dropping Attacks in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Wireless ad hoc networks are vulnerable to packet dropping attacks. However, they are also subjected to packet dropping due to link errors. In case of multi-hop wireless networks, it is essential to differentiate packet dropping due to link error or malicious attack. When any mechanism is able to differentiate this, can provide high level of security to the network with respect to packet dropping attacks. Many solutions came into existence as found in the literature. In this paper, we considered a special insider attack where malicious nodes are aware of other nodes in the network and exploit their knowledge to achieve packet drop which is potential risk in communication networks. Achieving satisfactory accuracy in detection of packet loss due to malicious attacks is given high importance. In this paper, public auditing mechanism is proposed and implemented that exploits correlations between lost packets. We proposed a public auditing architecture for accurate detection of packet drop attacks. We built a custom simulator using Java platform to demonstrate the proof of concept. The empirical results reveal the usefulness of the proposed system.   Keywords: Wireless ad hoc network, packet dropping, auditing  Cite this Article Raju Dara, Srikanth Ravula. Public Auditing Based Detection of Packet Dropping Attacks in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks. Current Trends in Information Technology. 2016; 6(3): 24–31p.