Prevention of flooding attack in wireless ad-hoc AODV-based networks using Real-time Host Intrusion Detection

A mobile ad hoc network is a collection of wireless nodes without any existing network infrastructure or centralized administration. It applies some special routing protocols, e.g. Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol, having the ability to forward the packets in dynamic network topology. The existing routing protocols can be divided into unsecure and secure protocols. They could not address all possible attacks aiming the disruption of the protocol itself. This paper addresses the flooding attack by applying multiple nodes in a simulated environment. We propose a Real-time Host Intrusion Detection for Ad hoc Networks (REHIDAN) algorithm to identify the flooding attacker nodes. It also takes the appropriate countermeasures to minimize the effectiveness of the attack and maintain the network performance within the accepted limits. The ad hoc network is simulated using the Optimized Network Engineering Tools (OPNET). Its performance under the flooding attack and after applying the proposed REHIDAN algorithm is tested. The results show that the proposed REHIDAN algorithm reduces the effect of the attack by reducing the end-to-end delay and the routing overhead ratio.