Geographically Secure Routing for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks: A Cross-Layer Based Approach
Key: KAHS06-1
Author: André König, Ralf Ackermann, Matthias Hollick, Ralf Steinmetz
Date: June 2006
Kind: In proceedings
Book title: Emerging Trends in Information and Communication Security
Abstract: The growth of mobile and wireless communications has also raised various concerns with respect to information-security. Recently, the design of secure protocols for wireless LANs has been placed under scrutiny to ensure the authenticity, integrity, and confidentiality of the communication. However, these protocols mostly focus on the protection of the ongoing communication only and neglect long-term security goals. Attack vectors against such long-term security goals include, but are not limited to adversaries that are eavesdropping the wireless communication to perform a post hoc cryptanalysis (possibly years after the datacapture). This paper introduces the paradigm of geographically secure routing to address the aforementioned shortcomings of existing security schemes. In particular, we propose a solution to transmit sensitive information in a mobile ad hoc network such that the routes are restricted to trustworthy nodes. Our scheme is able to prevent eavesdropping of or tampering with data inflight, thus, thwarting passive and active attacks and supporting the long-term security of the system. We implement our solution using a cross-layer approach that builds on existing ad hoc routing protocols and maintains the compatibility with these protocols. A simulation study shows the feasibility of our approach and validates the proposed solution.

The documents distributed by this server have been provided by the contributing authors as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a non-commercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, not withstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.