A secure MANET routing protocol for first responders

Emergency and rescue operations are often carried out in areas where the network infrastructure cannot be relied on for message exchange between first responders. Since the fundamental feature of Mobile Ad Hoc Network is the ability to operate independently of existing infrastructure, it is deemed a well suited solution to first responders scenarios. In this paper we describe a security extension to the OLSR routing protocol specifically designed for first responders scenarios. Our proposed protocol provides node authentication and access control using asymmetric encryption and digital certificates. A link encryption scheme is devised to allow for efficient encryption of data even in broadcast mode, without the need for a network wide shared key. By utilising pairwise symmetric keys for link confidentiality, our solution is both efficient and scalable.