Using Honeynodes along with Channel Surfing for Defense against Jamming Attacks in Wireless Networks

Abstract

The advent of wireless networks has brought a new set of security issues with it. The most feared of these is a jamming based attack. This is because with the existing network architecture, there is very little that can be done to overcome a jamming attack. In this paper we propose a pre-emptive detection strategy using honeynodes and a response mechanism based on the existing channel surfing algorithm to protect wireless nodes from a jammer. Honeynodes generate dummy communication at a frequency close to the actual frequency of operation, so that the authentic nodes can jump to another frequency even before a jammer starts scanning that frequency. We have implemented the proposed method using ns2. Experimental results show a marked improvement in the performance in our proposed system over the existing channel surfing algorithm.