Secure AODV Protocol for Mobile Networks Using Short Digital Signatures

Security is a primary issue in Mobile Ad-hoc networks (MANETs). Unlike the wired networks, mobile network faces a number of challenges in security threats which are difficult to prevent due to limited computational resources, shared wireless medium, energy/battery power, limited wireless range. In this paper we review existing security attacks in MANETs and proposed an enhanced mechanism to prevent them. We modify Ad-hoc on demand distance vector routing protocol (AODV) by introducing short digital signature scheme for authentication and name it Secure AODV(SAODV).The use of Short digital signature aims at gaining the same security level but with more efficiency and less computation. The performance of SAODV is evaluated against the known security threats which is significant as it proves highly resistant to a number of malicious attempts in MANETs. We have also evaluated the proposed protocol for its limitations.