The Case for End-to-End Solutions to Secure Routing in MANETs

Providing secure routing in MANETs is far more difficult than in wired networks or static wireless networks. Node mobility and the relative scarcity of bandwidth render prior solutions ineffective. Solutions based on securing link or path information do not work well in MANETs because the dynamic nature of links requires extensive use of flooding. On the other hand, solutions based on hop-by-hop exchanges of distance information are easily compromised. Furthermore, path discovery does not necessarily translate into data delivery. We argue that secure routing in MANETs must be based on the end- to-end verification of physical-path characteristics aided by the exploitation of path diversity to find secure paths. We apply this approach to the design of the Secure Routing through Diversity and Verification (SRDV) protocol, a secure routing protocol that we show to be as efficient as unsecure on-demand or proactive routing approaches in the absence of attacks.