Abstract
Mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a self-configuring and self-maintaining network characterized as dynamic topology, absence of infrastructure, and limited resources. These characteristics introduce security vulnerabilities, as well as difficulty in providing security services to MANETs. Up to date, tremendous research has been done to develop security approaches to MANETs. This work will discuss the existing approaches that have intended to defend against various attacks at different layers. Open challenges are also discussed in the chapter.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Security: The concepts, measures, or processes of protecting data from unauthorized access or disruption.
MANET (mobile ad hoc network): An infrastructure- less, self-organizing network of mobile hosts connected with wireless communication channels. A MANET does not have a fixed topology because all the hosts can move freely, which results in rapid and unpredictable topology change.
Medium Access Control (MAC): A sublayer of the data link layer specified in the seven-layer OSI (open systems interconnection) model. It addresses problems of moving data frames across a shared channel.
Key Management: The techniques or processes of creating, distributing, and maintaining a secret key, which will be used to protect the secrecy of communications or to ensure the original data are not maliciously altered.
Intrusion Detection: The techniques or processes of detecting inappropriate, incorrect, or anomalous activities.
Authentication: The processes of verifying the identity of an entity if it is indeed the entity it declares to be.
Routing: The process of selecting paths in a network along which to send data packets.