Detection of Colluding Misbehaving Nodes in Mobile Ad Hoc and Wireless Mesh Networks

Ubiquitous network connectivity and mobile communications have recently attracted remarkable attention. Wireless multihop networks such as Mobile Ad hoc Networks or Wireless Mesh Networks have been proposed to cater to the arising needs. Various security challenges persist, esp. because these networks build on the premise of node cooperation. Secure routing protocols and mechanisms to detect routing misbehavior in the direct neighborhood exist; however, collusion of misbehaving nodes has not been adequately addressed yet. We present LeakDetector, a mechanism to detect colluding malicious nodes in wireless multihop networks. In combination with proactive secure multipath routing algorithms, LeakDetector enables the calculation of the packet-loss ratio for the individual nodes. We perform an experimental analysis, which shows the excellent detection quality of LeakDetector.