Evaluation of rushing attack on secured message transmission (SMT/SRP) protocol for mobile ad-hoc networks

Abstract

Communication in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) comprises two phases, route discovery and data transmission. In a hostile environment, adversarial nodes can try to disrupt communication in both phases; therefore, to ensure comprehensive security, both communication phases should be safeguarded. Physical security in MANET setups is very limited and the possibility of spoofing, replay transmission, header modification, etc. always exists. Link level security, using encryption, does reduce threats, but the most pressing issue remains with inter-router authentication prior to the exchange of network control information. MANET routing protocols have been enhanced to address the security needs. An attack named rushing attack prevents discovery of routes beyond two hops by all previously published protocols. Rushing attack prevention (RAP) is a generic secure route discovery component, which can be applied on any on-demand route discovery mechanism against rushing attack. Any MANET node can maliciously or selfishly disrupt and deny the communication of other nodes. Secured message transmission (SMT) protocol safeguards data transmission against any arbitrary malicious behavior of network nodes. SMT uses secured routing protocol (SRP) in the route discovery phase. The paper analyzes the outcome of rushing attack on SMT/SRP and also evaluates the relevance of various variants of rushing attack as applicable to SMT/SRP.