An effective analysis on intrusion detection systems in wireless mesh networks

Intrusion Detection Systems(IDSs) are widely used to detect both known attacks and unknown attacks performed by internal and external attackers in wireless networks. However, challenging issues for developing IDSs in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are 1) supporting interoperability and 2) handling volatile parameters. In addition, security standards for WMN are still in draft stage, and to protect the WMN, IDSs of similar wireless networks such as wireless sensor, Ad-Hoc, MANET can be adopted, but the best performance is not guaranteed. In this paper, we have classified the existing IDSs for wireless networks into four categories namely single layer IDS, cross-layer IDS, reputation-based IDS, reputation based cross-layer IDS, and analyzed the performance of these IDSs with core-layer attacks and detection methodology. Based on our analysis, we address the loopholes in existing IDSs and specify research directions for strengthening the existing IDSs and for developing new efficient IDSs with respect to backbone mesh and client mesh networks.