Securing Routing in MANETs: A Comprehensive Review of Enhanced Optimized Link State Routing (EOLSR)

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are decentralized and self-organized networks that offer flexible communication but face serious security challenges, especially in routing. MANETs are vulnerable to attacks such as blackhole, wormhole, and Sybil attacks, which degrade network performance and reliability. This paper reviews the Enhanced Optimized Link State Routing (EOLSR) protocol, which addresses these security issues through a combination of cryptographic authentication, trust-based routing, and intrusion detection systems. Results show that EOLSR significantly improves routing security compared to classical OLSR and other secure protocols, effectively mitigating common routing attacks without sacrificing network efficiency. Despite its advantages, EOLSR faces challenges including scalability and computational overhead. Future work is proposed to integrate advanced technologies such as machine learning and blockchain to enhance EOLSR’s performance further. Overall, EOLSR demonstrates strong potential for securing MANET routing in dynamic and resource-constrained environments. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed EOLSR protocol significantly outperforms OLSR, SAODV, and TDSR in terms of Packet Delivery Ratio, End-to-End Delay, Energy Consumption, and Attack Mitigation Efficiency. EOLSR exhibits superior resilience against Blackhole, Wormhole, and Sybil attacks, making it a robust solution for secure MANET routing.