A Survey on Secure Ad-Hoc Network Routing
Rakesh Vanam, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Cleveland State University
Abstract:
Ad-Hoc networks are networks with no fixed
infrastructure for routing. Nodes change their
position at every instant. Each mobile node
should perform the activities of server, router.
Present work is a survey about how routing is
done in such a network. Security is very
important issue in such fragile environment.
Routing protocol logics employed to provide
security are presented.
Introduction:
Wireless is an exciting area in everyday
applications point of view. It bought a paradigm
shift in how every day applications are deployed.
Wifi technology allowed to realize wireless lans.
Cellular networks became more interesting when
voice communication is coupled with data
communication. Mesh networks are of more
interest in present scenario.
Routing protocols in ad-hoc network is designed
for reliability, efficiency rather than security.
There are two ways of securing an ad-hoc
network reactive and proactive. In ad-hoc
network it is just a collection of nodes without
fixed infrastructure and they move. Broadcast is
short links are made and broken.
Nodes are battery powered and have energy
constraints, hence routing algorithms should have
energy as its consideration. As a model ad-hoc
network can be described as state of system by
using finite state machine. Markov constraint is
used to define such state where present state is
independent on previous state. But any way
nature cannot be simulated. Medium constraints
include limited bandwidth and synchrony.
Malicious nodes cannot adhere to the rules as
good nodes. Adversary attacks system through
certain nodes. It has control over such nodes.
Adversary can launch attacks such as hidden
channel, wormhole, rushing attack, vary
transmission range, direct the transmission,
replicate.
Security cannot be experienced by user unless it is
totally not there are reduced a lot. Access control
is one of the important factor in security.
Confidentiality is data cannot be received by
others unless it is intended.
Ad-hoc networks are networks which don't have
perfect infrastructure. There should be trust
between nodes because data travels through them.
Then the question arises how much trust should
be there among them. Cryptography is one such
thing which is used to tackle the physical loss or
stealth. Since this nodes are small and if stolen the
attack is more difficult to defend.
The problems are some what similar to that of
wired networks. Although solutions are available
for wired networks they cannot be directly
applied to the wireless networks. Because the
environment of wireless network is totally
different from that of wired network. Several
constraints are to be considered one such
constraint is mobility, the other is energy. The
mobile nodes are energy sensitive and that should
be conserved. Protocols and services are to be
designed which takes this issues into account.
Attacker can be defined to perform following
actions: capturing devices, attack network from
inside, impersonate, modify, intercept data, drop
data. Availability and reliability are of main
concern. If the network is available and the packet
which is intended to a node does not delivered to
that node then that network is said not to be
reliable. Both are required for a good
communication.
Routing is of more importance in the Ad hoc
networks. Routing protocols are able to provide
service even if some networks are not working.
Hybrid networks are of more interest here, they
use both multi-hop wireless network and cellular
network.
Routing protocols that guarantee delivery even
when parts of node are compromised. Applying to
multi-hop wireless network and cellular
component.
Overview of attacks:
Routing in wireless network is a special case
where the medium is shared. As the number of
nodes increased the quality of service goes down.
If the medium is accessed by somebody it cannot
be accessed by any other. Here the data is costly
to send, hence data which is really in need should
only be communicated.
In wired networks the protocols are proactive, that
is even if no information is exchanged between
the hosts, each hosts maintain the information
about all routes. In wireless networks this is an
overhead which is not acceptable. Most of the
wireless network protocols follow a different
approach. Host only establishes a route only if
host requires to talk to other host. Host floods the
network asks for the node which it wants to
establish a connection with. Receiver again floods
back saying the connection is available. Once the
path is decided then by using available paths best
path is decided. Best path is decided by hop count
or node count. Node caching mechanism is used
to save the route information and share with other
nodes when it is needed. Byzantine threat model
is defined as if x be number of nodes which are
effected by adversary, Once chosen they are fixed
for duration of system.
A variant of such model is which allows
adversary to be able to release some malicious
nodes back into the honest world and take some
others. Adversary can be either active or passive.
Passive adversary is able to eaves drop or just
observe. Active adversary can drop packets,
spoofing, modifying, fabricating and other
possible options.
Attacks can be grossly categorized as denial of
service attacks and man in the middle attacks.
Counter measures include intrusion detection.
Man in the middle attack is where enemy takes
control of two nodes and launches active threats
such as wormhole, rushing, sybil. Wormhole is
making distance between two nodes look shorter
than other. Counter measures for man in the
middle attack are asking for occasional signed
copies form every one. Faults occur in two
extremes one is scholastically indistinguishable
and the other is dependent. Attacker mask comes
in between. Flooding is a solution but it is costly.
It may also trigger a DOS attack.
Routing algorithms:
Node discovers a node and sends a packet relayed
through other nodes. Process is a distributed
process, everyone is involved in it. Each node is
helped out together to find the route. Security
deals with x adversary tolerance. Probability that
protocol terminates when adv is active is same as
protocol terminates when adversary is passive.
That implies adversary has not achieved anything.
Then it is called as perfect x tolerance. When the
application is 75% reliable then it is called
working.
Routing algorithms are of two kinds one is
network centric and the other is source centric.
Network centric routing is distributed, every one
has a role. For example DSDV, AODV. Source
centric is source does all the work. Security point
of view this is better. There is no delegation in
this type of routing.
DSR (Dynamic source routing): If a node needs to
discover a route, node sends a message called
'route request'. Every node in between when sees
the first route message, looks whether it has a
route, caches to record and in future it does not
need to look for that. When requested for a route
node replies with a message called as 'route reply'.
Maintenance is achieved by detecting local
neighbor by periodically pinging. If it is not
available then a 'route error' message is send and
route is propagated through other nodes.
Protection or security mechanism if not in place
then that will lead to many attacks. Any attacker
can fabricate, modify messages. These attacks are
common .
Security Mechanisms:
Two types of security mechanisms are available
symmetric key cryptography and public key
cryptography. Latter is cheaper than later. For
authentication of nodes digital signatures are
used. Each node is given a secret key and also list
of all public keys of all others. Link messages that
are signed by node. In malicious environment if
there are cheaters they do not follow rules.
Malicious nodes may start sharing their keys and
one node can present itself as number of nodes.
This type of attack is known as Sybil attack.
Problems in detecting malicious behavior is
mainly related to authorization. The authorizing
node may be malicious or not. This raise a new
problem. The problem can be mitigated by
sharing common secrets.
Trust Management:
Trust management can be done by resurrecting
duckling, first node that sends the message is
considered as its owner. Key authority is made
decentralized. At least t+1 nodes out of n nodes
should give key.
Watchdog application is employed for the node to
watch next node about its action and do action
according to its observation. Against sybil attacks
secure multi casting, secure aggregation of data
will work.
SEAD :
It is a routing protocol used in which a table is
maintained by each node. Table contains address,
node count and destination. This information is
broadcast is done by each node. Every node
update itself by using this information. A
sequence number is also used which prevents it
from infinite looping. Hash chains which are
irreversible are used for making the request and
reply authentic.
Ariadne:
Shared secrets between nodes are used. Digital
signatures are maintained between nodes so that
more security can be achieved. This is based on
DSR, dynamic source routing. Authenticity of
Route Request is done by message authentication.
Route reply is done through legitimate nodes.
Message authentication code (MAC) is computed
with key that is shared between two nodes. By
using shared key target is guaranteed of
authentication. Reputation based system employs
the technique of copying the node activities.
Conclusion:
Basics of ad-hoc network are studied and routing
protocols employed for routing in ad-hoc
networks are explained. Security in ad-hoc
network is a challenging issue. To avoid failure of
such networks, secure routing protocols are
studied.
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