Detecting Malicious Packet Dropping in the Presence of Collisions and Channel Errors in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Detecting malicious packet dropping is important in ad hoc networks to combat a variety of security attacks such as blackhole, greyhole, and wormhole attacks. We consider the detection of malicious packet drops in the presence of collisions and channel errors and describe a method to distinguish between these types. We present a simple analytical model for packet loss that helps a monitoring node to detect malicious packet dropping attacks. The model is analyzed and evaluated using simulations. The results show that it is possible to detect malicious packet drops in the presence of collisions and channel errors.