Enhancing security in optimized link state routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

Routing protocols in Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) have received a lot of attention due to the challenges posed by the self-organized nature of the network, the dynamic topology and openness of wireless links. One of the most critical issues for MANETs is the security requirements. Hence, many researchers have focused their works on enhancing security in these networks. However, the security enhancements in routing protocols have been mostly proposed for reactive MANET protocols. In this paper, we propose a solution to secure a proactive topology discovery using a pre-existing routing protocol Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR), which is robust against wormhole attack and with the help of digital signatures the solution provides a security service such as authentication, data integrity, privacy and confidentiality. Also, the hash-chain is used to protect the mutable fields in the routing packets. Moreover, our proposal uses a timestamp to prevent the replay attack.