3rd International ICST Symposium on Information Assurance and Security

Research Article

A Performance Comparison of Wireless Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols under Security Attack

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/IAS.2007.35,
        author={Su Mon Bo and Hannan Xiao and Aderemi Adereti and James A. Malcolm and Bruce  Christianson},
        title={A Performance Comparison of Wireless Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols under Security Attack},
        proceedings={3rd International ICST Symposium on  Information Assurance and Security},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={IAS},
        year={2007},
        month={9},
        keywords={routing protocols  security attack  wireless ad hoc networks},
        doi={10.1109/IAS.2007.35}
    }
    
  • Su Mon Bo
    Hannan Xiao
    Aderemi Adereti
    James A. Malcolm
    Bruce Christianson
    Year: 2007
    A Performance Comparison of Wireless Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols under Security Attack
    IAS
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/IAS.2007.35
Su Mon Bo1, Hannan Xiao1,*, Aderemi Adereti1, James A. Malcolm1,*, Bruce Christianson1,*
  • 1: School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire College Lane, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK
*Contact email: h.xiao@herts.ac.uk, j.a.malcolm@herts.ac.uk, b.christianson@herts.ac.uk

Abstract

The unique characteristics of a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), such as dynamic topology, shared wireless medium and open peer-to-peer network architecture, pose various security challenges. This paper compares three routing protocols, DSDV, DSR, and AODV under security attack where two types of node misbehaviour have been investigated. Network performance is evaluated in terms of normalized throughput, routing overhead, normalized routing load, and average packet delay, when a percentage of nodes misbehave. Simulation results show that although the performance of all three routing protocols degrades, DSDV is the most robust routing protocol under security attacks. This reveals that a proactive routing protocol has the potential of excluding misbehaving nodes in advance and reducing the impact of security attack.