IP traceback for wireless ad-hoc networks

Denial of service (DoS) and distributed DoS attacks constitute a major class of security threat today. As the attackers usually use IP spoofing to conceal their real location, several IP traceback mechanisms have been proposed to trace the true source of the attackers to institute accountability. In wireless ad-hoc networks, where the nodes are typically devices with limited bandwidth, computational resources and battery power, and with unpredictable routing topology, additional constraints are placed on these tracing techniques to locate the attack sources efficiently. We have conducted qualitative analysis and simulations to investigate the feasibility and evaluate the attack path detection performance of existing IP traceback techniques (i.e., source path isolation engine, probabilistic packet marking, and ICMP traceback) on wireless ad-hoc networks, using a proactive (DSDV) or a reactive (AODV) routing protocol. Our studies show that the performance of traceback depends not only on the technique itself, but also on the ad-hoc routing protocol chosen and the network size.