Attack-pattern discovery based enhanced trust model for secure routing in mobile ad-hoc networks

Multi-hop routing in an open environment in the absence of well-established infrastructure and centralized authority strives for trustworthiness and cooperation of nodes in a Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET). There is no guarantee of secure and reliable delivery of packets when some internal nodes intentionally perform packet forwarding misbehavior by compromising the routing mechanism. In this paper, we address this issue with a trust-model integrated with an attack pattern discovery technique. Extended from the Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol, we propose a trust-based scheme founded on nodes' historical behaviors which adopts a pattern discovery mechanism in order to detect suspicious activities from the malevolent nodes before they start dropping data packets. We also present the detailed mode of operations of three distinct adversary models launching various kinds of packet forwarding misbehavior. Theoretical analysis and experimental results prove that the integration of a pattern discovery method with a trust-based model provides earlier detection of adversaries which follow specific attack patterns and weakens their damaging effects on the network in comparison to a solitary trust-based model. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.