Securing wireless mesh networks: a winning combination of routing and forwarding mechanisms

The popularity and the constant improvement of wireless technologies, such as WiFi and WiMAX, have been increasing the usage and applicability of new networking schemes, including Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). WMNs are multi-hop wireless networks made by a collection of two types of nodes, mesh routers and mesh clients. Their self-organizing, self-configuring and self-healing proprieties, in conjunction with their low maintenance and implementation costs, make them especially appealing as a solution for Internet access and social networking. The characteristics of WMNs make them more susceptible to malicious attacks than traditional wired networks, namely the scarce bandwidth, the high level of interference, the shared transmission media and the limited physical security. Secure routing and forwarding schemes are a key component to guarantee secure communications in hostile environments. There are however issues that must be considered when developing secure routing and forwarding solutions, namely the overhead introduced by such approaches and the effectiveness of the prediction schemes used. This paper discusses the main solutions for routing security in WMNs and presents a thorough evaluation, comprising a novel way to characterize the effectiveness of such approaches. The evaluation is based on CONFIDANT, a secure routing protocol based on the DSR protocol. The study performed addresses both the issues aforementioned and provides insight on the trade-offs associated with the deployment of secure routing and forwarding mechanisms.