A Survey of Secure Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring network that is formed automatically via wireless links by a collection of mobile nodes without the help of a fixed infrastructure or centralized management. The mobile nodes forward packets for each other, allowing communication among nodes outside wireless transmission range hop by hop. Due to dynamic infrastructure-less nature and lack of centralized monitoring points, the ad hoc networks are vulnerable to attacks. Attacks on ad hoc network routing protocols disrupt network performance and reliability. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of attacks and secure routing. It first analyzes the reason that ad hoc network is vulnerable to attacks. Then it presents the well known attacks and the popular secure protocols.