A High-Performance Distributed Certificate Revocation Scheme for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are wireless networks which have a wide range applications due to their dynamic topologies and easy to deployment. However, such networks are also more vulnerable to attacks compared with traditional wireless networks. Certificate revocation is an effective mechanism for providing network security services. Existing schemes are not well suited for MANETs because of incurring much overhead or bring low accuracy on certificate revocation. Therefore, we propose a high-performance distributed certificate revocation scheme in which certificates of malicious nodes will be revoked quickly and accurately. Certificate revocation is the result of the collaborative effect of multiple accusations. For diluting damages to networks, one accusation is enough to limit the accusation function of the accused node. To enhance the accuracy of certificate revocation, our scheme requires nodes just accepting those accusations in which trust levels of accuser nodes are not less than accused nodes'. To guarantee the rapidity, we restore accusation functions of the falsely accused nodes after revoking certificates of all malicious nodes who ever accused them. Moreover, we design one mechanism to reward nodes who ever accused those malicious nodes, and in return, accusations made by them will accelerate the certificate revocation processes of other malicious nodes. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our scheme in certificate revocation. In addition, our scheme achieves a great improvement of just limiting accusation functions of malicious nodes.