The impact of mobility patterns on MANET vulnerability to DDoS attacks

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the influence of mobility models, node speed and attack duration on the MANET vulnerability to bandwidth attacks, which are performed as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. We propose the attack model and present a comprehensive simulation study, carried out by the network simulator ns-2 and its associated tools for mobile scenario generation, network animation and trace files analysis. The following mobility models have been compared: Random Waypoint, Manhattan Grid, Gauss-Markov, and Reference Point Group Mobility. Simulation results indicate that MANET inherent features, such as node mobility pattern and speed, strongly affect the degree of vulnerability to DDoS attacks. Possible countermeasures against this type of attack have also been discussed. Ill. 6, bibl. 17, tabl. 2 (in English; abstracts in English and Lithuanian).