Securing DSR with mobile agents in wireless ad hoc networks

Ad hoc wireless network consists of a set of wireless nodes communicating with each other without a pre-defined infrastructure. They communicate by forwarding packets which can reach wireless nodes that do not exist in the range of the direct radio transmission. Designing ad hoc network routing protocols is a challenging task because of its decentralized infrastructure which makes securing ad hoc networks more and more challenging. Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol is a popular routing protocol designed for use in wireless ad hoc networks. Mobile agent is a promising technology used in diverse fields of network applications. In this paper, we try to implement DSR using mobile agents for securing this type of wireless network. Hybrid encryption technique (symmetric key encryption/public key encryption) is used to improve performance; where symmetric keys are used to encrypt routing data to authenticate and authorize node sending data, while, public keys are used for the exchange of symmetric keys between nodes. We found that DSR may be secured using mobile agents with competitive performance.