A Framework to Detect and Mitigate Wormhole Attack in Mobile Wireless Ad Hoc Network

Abstract

Wireless Networks are formed by a number of static and dynamic nodes to establish communication. Due to ad hoc in nature, they are gaining a lot of popularity in the field of research and users of mobile are increasing day by day. With the advent of these networks, information sharing has become feasible because of easy deploy ability in remote and difficult unattended areas. Mobile Ad hoc Networks can be easily set up because of self-organization characteristics and wireless medium. Other characteristics that attract attention towards Wireless Networks are lack of centralized fixed infrastructure, adaptability to frequent change in topologies etc... Due to nodes mobility and frequent change in topologies, Wireless Networks are susceptible to a variety of attacks. Further, MANET has the open and dynamic operational environment that makes MANET vulnerable to various network attacks. Most of the time, routing protocols are the common target for a common type of attacks. These attacks can involve in damaging, modifying, discarding routing information, manipulating information, advertise fake routes, misrouting information and eavesdropping. The situation may be precarious for confidential communication. There are different types of attacks that can harm Wireless Networks at different layers of communication and degrade network performance. The examples of these types of attacks are as Eavesdropping, Jamming, Traffic analysis and monitoring, Denial of Service, Gray hole attack, Black hole attack, Wormhole attack etc. Ad-hoc network is a collection of several wireless nodes that are capable of communicating directly with each other without having any infrastructure or any centralized administration. Multihop communication can be created by making nodes as routers. That means all nodes which involve in ad hoc network can be act as router. The wireless node can give wide range of application because of node mobility and frequent topology changes, especially in military operations and emergency and disaster relief efforts.