A Performance Comparison of Wireless Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocols under Security Attack

The unique characteristics of a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), such as dynamic topology, shared wireless medium and open peer-to-peer network architecture, pose various security challenges. This paper compares three routing protocols, DSDV, DSR, and AODV under security attack where two types of node misbehaviour have been investigated. Network performance is evaluated in terms of normalized throughput, routing overhead, normalized routing load, and average packet delay, when a percentage of nodes misbehave. Simulation results show that although the performance of all three routing protocols degrades, DSDV is the most robust routing protocol under security attacks. This reveals that a proactive routing protocol has the potential of excluding misbehaving nodes in advance and reducing the impact of security attack.