Security Mechanisms to Decrease Vulnerability of Ad-hoc Routing Protocols

Many proposed routing protocols for ad hoc networks operate in an ad hoc fashion, as on demand routing protocols often have low overhead and faster reaction time than other types of routing based on periodic protocols. Dynamic nature of ad-hoc networks leads to challenges in securing the network. Due to the vulnerable nature of ad-hoc networks there are many security threats. One of the solutions to the problem is ARAN - Authenticated routing protocol which is a secure protocol and provides Integrity, Availability, Confidentiality, Authenticity, Non repudiation, Authorization & Anonymity. But an authenticated selfish node can interfere this protocol and disturb the network by dropping packets. However varieties of attacks targeting routing protocols have been identified. By attacking, the routing protocol attacker can absorb network traffic, inject them in the path between source and destination and thus control 0network traffic. Therefore many secure routing protocols have been developed that deal with these attacks. This paper analyzes the security aspects of one commonly used secure routing protocol ARAN.