Defending against whitewashing attacks in peer-to-peer file-sharing networks

Abstract

Nowadays, peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks have been widely applied because of the popularity of P2P software. Complete freedom not only allows for the development of P2P networks but also brings about security risks. Malicious nodes can escape the punishment of reputation mechanisms by performing some attacks such as a whitewashing attack. In this paper, we propose a novel reputation mechanism based on two kinds of reputation so as to resist a whitewashing attack. We analyze the reputation and the capacity of the node corresponding to two different behaviors. The relationship between the behavior, capacity, and reputation of the node is discussed. We give the calculation method of our reputation mechanism and run simulations. The results show that our reputation mechanism could defend against a whitewashing attack effectively.