Inherent Security Benefits of Analog Network Coding for the Detection of Byzantine Attacks in Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

Modern multi-hop wireless networks employ a number of sophisticated schemes to secure the network against hostile attacks. However, constant improvements in any security mechanism is matched by ever increasing sophisticated attacks. Therefore, there is a constant need to develop innovative schemes, especially for applications where the integrity of the message is vital. Attacks from trusted byzantine nodes that belong to the network itself are particularly challenging, as these nodes have a hidden malicious component and have complete access to the network resources. Previous works have studied these attacks and countermeasures for multi-hop networks and on networks capable of performing Network Coding. In this paper, we identify an inherent security benefit of Analog Network Coding and show how it can be used to design a novel Dual Non-adjacent Watchdog scheme that can detect a set of malicious byzantine attacks.