A Novel Reaction Scheme against the MAC Layer Misbehavior in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol provides a fair access to the wireless channel through a distributed algorithm called the binary exponential back-off. The share nature of the channel makes networks vulnerable to several attacks like the MAC layer misbehavior. The MAC layer misbehavior can be considered as a denial of service attack, through modifications in the backoff algorithm. Indeed, greedy nodes try to enhance their throughput by choosing a small waiting time at the expanse of honest nodes. A single detection mechanism is inadequate against this type of attack; hence a reaction scheme is needful. In this paper we propose a novel reaction scheme against the MAC layer misbehavior, with a minimum of changes to the IEEE 802.11 protocol. Our reaction is in the form of an iterative and cooperative game played by different honest nodes, those who respect the protocol. We also propose a variant of our reaction scheme based on the polynomial regression, in order to reduce the reaction delay. The performance validation of the so called reaction was done with NS2 simulator. The reaction method that we propose tends to align with the cheater node while keeping the fair aspect of the IEEE802.11 standard.