A Simple and Efficient Detection of Wormhole Attacks

Wormhole attacks in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) have long been considered a serious threat to MANET's routing. Most of the existing proposals rely on GPS devices and require that the node's clocks are synchronized. Such constraints naturally lead to limitations of applicability since GPS does not operate well in obstructed areas, and clock synchronization in MANET is not always accurate. In this paper, we propose an efficient and simple way to detect wormhole attacks, using a technique called reference broadcast. GPS devices are not required, and clocks do not need to be synchronized. In fact, no particular assumption is made on the communication equipment. We show that our solution can be easily implemented, using either the well-known routing protocol OLSR or any neighbor discovery protocol. Our solution also exhibits a high degree of accuracy in detecting wormhole attacks.