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Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is considered as a next generation key promising technology which is attractive in the areas where infrastructure is either existing or absurdly expensive because of multi-hop, auto-configuring and dynamic features (Akyildiz & Wang, 2005). The multi-hop characteristic of WMN extends the network scalability where numbers of nodes communicate with each other via multiple mesh routers to access or forward their data packets. The significant factor that impacts the WMN performance is the nature of fundamental routing protocols used for promoting the data packets. Presence of any malicious or misbehaving node within the routing path may interrupt the network activities either by spoofing or reducing the data packets or by degrading the overall performance of the network (Khan & Pathan, 2013). The conventional routing protocols operate smoothly with an assumption that all intermediate nodes are trusted and cooperative with each other however, the dynamic and multi-hop characteristic of mesh environment invites number of internal vulnerabilities to come where attackers may launch several types of attacks either by compromising the legitimate routing nodes or by disrupting the transmitted data packets. Therefore, one of the norm approaches to counter such attacks is secure routing. The existing routing algorithms for Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) (Jhaveri & Patel, 2015) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) (Bendimerad & Kechar, 2015) do not perform well in mesh environments because of its unique requirements and characteristics. Further existing secure routing protocols i.e. Secure Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (SAODV) (Lu et al, 2009), Security Enhanced Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (SEAODV) (Li et al, 2010), Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) (Chakeres & Belding-Royer, 2004) that are basically espouse for homogenous systems does not adopt well in heterogeneous mesh environment because of its multi-hop and dynamic nature and cause copious perilous threats with a decrease in network performance metrics (i.e. end-to-end delay cost and packet delivery ratio). These protocols are vulnerable to a variety of routing threats i.e. worm hole, gery hole, jellyfish and black hole attacks (Choi et al, 2008; Chaitanya & Varadarajan, 2016) because of an assumption of non-hostile environment where nodes are cooperative and non-malicious. However, to prevent from these loop holes, an efficient secure routing protocol is needed which can successfully transmit the data packets to its intended destination node.
In this manuscript, we have proposed a Weight Trusted Routing (WTR) mechanism for hierarchical mesh networks that ensures a secure path formation by detecting and eliminating the malicious nodes using trusted weight computation through Social Impact Theory Optimizer (SITO). The proposed WTR mechanism enhances the network metrics by reducing additional cryptographic operations needed to ensure the security during transmission process. Further, the proposed protocol is analyzed against reported routing protocol i.e. Secure Routing Mechanism (SRM) which overcomes routing attacks (i.e. black hole and worm hole attacks) by modifying the basic AODV protocol.
The technical contribution of this manuscript is as follows:
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Dijkstra’s routing algorithm is used to find the shortest path between source and destination and also reduces the overall complexity of the algorithm against reported SRM protocol.
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The weights in dijkstra’s algorithm among the nodes are computed through various factors i.e. node distance, trust of a node, residual energy and packet loss.
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An adversary model is assumed by varying the number of black hole and worm hole nodes to validate the proposed mechanism.
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Numerical simulation is performed to evaluate and analyze the network metrics and packet loss ratio parameter is considered during worm hole and black hole attacks in order to compare the proposed mechanism against reported SRM protocol.