Secure communications in ad hoc networks

Abstract

Ad hoc networks are collections of mobile nodes with links that are made or broken in an arbitrary way. They have no fixed infrastructure and may have constrained resources. The next generation of IT applications is expected to rely heavily on such networks. However, before they can be successfully deployed several major security threats must be addressed. These threats are due mainly to the ad hoc nature of these networks. Consequently it may be much harder (or even impossible) to establish a secure communication channel that can tolerate malicious faults. In this paper we first propose a general model for ad hoc networks based on Bayesian inferences that satisfies the basic mobility requirements of such networks and formally define our requirements for secure communication. We then propose a secure communication protocol that trace malicious faults.