Performance Comparison of Reactive Routing Protocols under Attack Conditions

Mobile ad-hoc wireless networks are established with the mutual cooperation of a number of nodes generally having meagre computing and communication resources. These nodes execute special routing protocols, which enable them to perform multi-hop communication in a dynamic topology. Each node virtually acts as a mobile router and routes packets for other nodes in the network. For accurate functioning of the network it is imperative that all nodes execute these routing protocols in a benevolent manner. However, as ad-hoc networks are usually established in a physically insecure wireless environment, the network memberships are every now and then violated, and so malicious nodes are able to participate in the network. These nodes can launch an array of attacks against different network services including the routing process. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of three well known reactive routing protocols, in a network with varying number of malicious nodes. With the help of exhaustive simulations, we demonstrate that the performance of the three protocols greatly varies with traffic load and mobility conditions even under similar attack conditions.