A cross layer framework to mitigate a joint MAC and routing attack in multihop wireless networks

It is well known that security threats, in wireless ad hoc networks, are becoming a serious problem which may lead to harmful consequences on network performance. Despite that, many routing protocols still not resilient to such threats or their countermeasures are not efficient. Moreover, the vulnerability of MAC layer protocols to some attacks exacerbates the damage caused by the threats at higher layers. Therefore, cooperation between layers in compulsory to face such devastating threats. In this paper, we address a cross-layer attack targeting proactive routing protocols, which is launched at the routing level and reinforced at the MAC layer in order to amplify the resulted damage. We demonstrate that this attack can severely compromise the routing protocols and lead to large data packets loss. We particularly analyze it under the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol in detail and propose a lightweight solution to cope with it. The simulation results confirm the efficiency of this solution.