Sensors 2011, 11(12), 11122-11140; doi:10.3390/s111211122
Article

A New MANET Wormhole Detection Algorithm Based on Traversal Time and Hop Count Analysis

Jonny Karlsson 1,2,* email, Laurence S. Dooley 1 email and Göran Pulkkis 2 email
1 Department of Communication and Systems, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK 2 Department of Business, Information Technology and Media, Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Jan-Magnus Janssons plats 1, Helsinki 00550, Finland
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 27 September 2011; in revised form: 21 November 2011 / Accepted: 22 November 2011 / Published: 28 November 2011
(This article belongs to the Section Physical Sensors)
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Abstract: As demand increases for ubiquitous network facilities, infrastructure-less and self-configuring systems like Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) are gaining popularity. MANET routing security however, is one of the most significant challenges to wide scale adoption, with wormhole attacks being an especially severe MANET routing threat. This is because wormholes are able to disrupt a major component of network traffic, while concomitantly being extremely difficult to detect. This paper introduces a new wormhole detection paradigm based upon Traversal Time and Hop Count Analysis (TTHCA), which in comparison to existing algorithms, consistently affords superior detection performance, allied with low false positive rates for all wormhole variants. Simulation results confirm that the TTHCA model exhibits robust wormhole route detection in various network scenarios, while incurring only a small network overhead. This feature makes TTHCA an attractive choice for MANET environments which generally comprise devices, such as wireless sensors, which possess a limited processing capability.
Keywords: mobile networks; MANET; MANET security; routing security; wormhole attack; hop count; traversal time; WAP; DelPHI; MHA

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Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Karlsson, J.; Dooley, L.S.; Pulkkis, G. A New MANET Wormhole Detection Algorithm Based on Traversal Time and Hop Count Analysis. Sensors 2011, 11, 11122-11140.

AMA Style

Karlsson J, Dooley LS, Pulkkis G. A New MANET Wormhole Detection Algorithm Based on Traversal Time and Hop Count Analysis. Sensors. 2011; 11(12):11122-11140.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Karlsson, Jonny; Dooley, Laurence S.; Pulkkis, Göran. 2011. "A New MANET Wormhole Detection Algorithm Based on Traversal Time and Hop Count Analysis." Sensors 11, no. 12: 11122-11140.

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