2012
Wormhole Detection Using Channel Characteristics
S. Jain, T. Ta, J. S. Baras
Proceedings of the First IEEE International Workshop on Security and Forensics in Communication Systems (SFCS 2012), Ottawa, pp. 2712-2717, Canada, June 10-15, 2012.
Abstract
The potential applications and pervasive nature of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) has made them an attractive target for attackers. The wireless medium of communication coupled with constrained resources enable attacks which can be executed by a weak adversary. A wormhole is one such attack which poses considerable threat, particularly to routing protocols. In this paper, we devise a novel scheme for detecting a wormhole by utilizing the inherent symmetry of electromagnetic wave propagation in the wireless medium. We demonstrate the loss of this symmetry in case of a wormhole attack and propose a method to detect and flag the adversary. We modify the insecure neighborhood discovery to incorporate authentication. We further extend this scheme to a trust system with low overhead.
