A novel authentication scheme for ad hoc networks

Ad hoc networks are a new generation of networks offering unrestricted mobility without any underlying infrastructure. In these kinds of networks, all the nodes share the responsibility of network formation and management. As their principle application is in catastrophic environments, security is critical. Authentication, integrity and encryption are key issues pertaining to network security. Traditional authentication schemes cannot be effectively used in such decentralized networks. We present an end-to-end data authentication scheme that relies on mutual trust between nodes. The basic strategy is to take advantage of the hierarchical architecture that is implemented for routing purposes. We have proposed an authentication scheme that uses TCP at the transport layer and a hierarchical architecture at the IP layer so that the number of encryptions needed is minimized, thereby reducing the computational overheads. This also results in substantial savings as each node has to maintain keys for fewer nodes.