Challenges of Secure Routing in MANETs: A Simulative Approach using AODV-SEC

In this paper we present a new secure routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) based on AODV called AODV-SEC. Our security approach is using certificates and a public key infrastructure as trust anchor. To verify the correct functionality of the protocol we implemented it in the NS-2 simulator using genuine cryptography and performed extensive simulations and performance evaluations. In addition we present the need for a new certificate type for secure routing in MANETs called mCert. In our opinion the results point out the current difficulties of secure routing protocol design. The paper contains two main sections, one presenting the protocol implementation, the other presenting the simulation settings and the simulation results. The paper closes with a conclusion