On automating the verification of secure ad-hoc network routing protocols

Abstract

Ad-hoc networks do not rely on a pre-installed infrastructure, but they are formed by end-user devices in a self-organized manner. A consequence of this principle is that end-user devices must also perform routing functions. However, end-user devices can easily be compromised, and they may not follow the routing protocol faithfully. Such compromised and misbehaving nodes can disrupt routing, and hence, disable the operation of the network. In order to cope with this problem, several secured routing protocols have been proposed for ad-hoc networks. However, many of them have design flaws that still make them vulnerable to attacks mounted by compromised nodes. In this paper, we propose a fully automatic verification method for secure ad-hoc network routing protocols that helps increasing the confidence in a protocol by providing an analysis framework that is more systematic, and hence, less error-prone than the informal analysis. Our method is based on a deductive proof technique and a backward reachability approach. The main novelty of this approach compared to the prior works is that beside providing expressive semantics and syntax for modelling and specifying secure routing protocols, it assumes an arbitrary topology, and a strong attacker model.