A Secure Authenticated Routing Protocol for Mobile Adhoc Networks

In mobile adhoc networks, an attacker can easily disrupt the functioning of the network by attacking the underlying routing protocol. Several secured routing protocols have been proposed so far, for adhoc networks. But all of them have certain disadvantages. Hence, security in ad hoc networks is still a debatable area. In this paper, we propose to develop a Secure Authenticated Routing Protocol (SARP) for mobile adhoc networks, that uses a lightweight, attack resistant authentication mechanism. Our protocol provides an efficient security against route discovery attacks in MANET routing protocols. It quickly detects the malicious nodes, thus assisting the nodes to drop the invalid packets, earlier. It prevents malicious or compromised nodes from attacking the routes with uncompromised nodes. It also prevents a variety of denial-ofservice (DoS) attacks. Detailed simulation studies have confirmed the efficiency and effectiveness of SARP.