Hybrid trust model to prevent black hole attack in mobile ad-hoc network

Abstract

Mobile Ad Hoc Network is an emerging technology which allows nodes to communicate together irrespective of where they are located. MANET is composed of mobile devices with self-configuring capability and which exchange information wirelessly without any fixed network infrastructure. Due to the infrastructure-less nature, these mobile devices have to both route and forward traffic for their neighbors. The neighbor discovery and routing functionality is achieved using the major routing protocols namely AODV, DSDV and DSR. Devices in MANET exhibit high mobility nature, thus the wireless network topology changes rapidly. This change results to new nodes arriving, old ones leaving a certain coverage area, and consequently arise a need for each device to search for updated routing information. Due to continuous topology instability, MANETs are vulnerable to malicious attacks such as black-hole. The black hole attack involves a malicious node faking a route to unsuspected destination node. This project defines the design and implementation of a model to verify new nodes arriving in MANET so as to avoid chances of them establishing a black-hole attack. The model shall focus on introducing a probe RREQ packet and a trust concept to measure an expectation which a node will have about another’s future behavior for a certain activity.