Preventing impersonation attacks in MANET with multi-factor authentication

Abstract

Existing MANET authentication schemes cannot fully protect nodes from well-known impersonation attacks. Although these schemes cryptographically link an entity to a claimed identity, the actual entity is never linked to the physical node device. However, the link is implicitly assumed. This shortcoming may be easily exploited within a MANET setting, due to the broadcast nature of the access medium. In this paper we propose a multifactor authentication framework that extends the cryptographic link, binding an entity to a physical node device. This is achieved by using two distinct authentication factors; certified keys and certified node characteristics. Although the proposed framework requires additional sensing capabilities from the MANET nodes, it provides the additional confidence level required for node authentication in critical applications.