Weighted-NEAT: An efficient weighted node evaluation scheme with assistant trust mechanisms to secure wireless ad hoc networks

The pervasive nature of wireless devices and the arbitrary organization of mobile networks attract growing interest in the design of wireless and mobile ad hoc networks. However, malicious nodes always exist due to the vulnerabilities of wireless and mobile nodes and thereby their misbehavior can weaken the utilization of ad hoc networks. Therefore, addressing security issues becomes extremely important in such networks. In this article, we first describe the problem of misbehavior in wireless networks and state its challenges. Moreover, we propose a novel node evaluation solution in which a node can detect nodes´ misbehavior through evaluating their trustworthiness and respond to the detected misbehavior accordingly. Thus, our scheme allows a mobile node to more effectively evaluate its neighbors based on the additional trust information from selected neighboring nodes. Finally, by means of the proof of system correctness and discussion, our node evaluation strategy is analyzed to show how it offers provable security properties, so it can thus enhance the security of a network and improve the effectiveness of node evaluation.