Message security in mobile ad-hoc networks: Using trust-based multi-path routing approach

Message security is of paramount importance in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) due to several reasons including their applications in situations such as emergencies, crisis management, military and healthcare. However, because of the absence of a fixed infrastructure with a designated centralized access point, implementation of hard-cryptographic security is a challenging prospect. In this paper, we present a method of message security using trust-based multi-path routing. In this approach, less trusted nodes are given lower number of self-encrypted parts of a message, thereby making it difficult for malicious nodes to gain access to the minimum information required to break through the encryption strategy. Using trust levels, we make multi-path routing flexible enough to be usable in networks with ‘vital’ nodes and absence of necessary redundancy. In addition, using trust levels, we avoid non-trusted routes that may use of brute force attacks and may decrypt messages if enough parts of the message are available to them.