MANET Security Protocols for Black Hole and Gray Hole Attacks

Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a self-forming network of mobile devices connected by wireless links without the need of any pre-existing infrastructure. Due to its dynamic topology, MANETs are more vulnerable to security attacks than conventional wired or wireless networks. This proposal analyzes the Blackhole and Grayhole attacks which are among the new and possible attacks in ad hoc networks. In the Blackhole attack, a malicious node advertises itself as having the shortest and fresh path to the destination to attract data transmission through it and further drops all data packets sent to it for forwarding thus creating a blackhole in the network. Grayhole is a node that can switch its behaviour between normal node and Blackhole node. This toggling of behaviour is done to go undetected creating a tough challenge to security solutions. If the malicious nodes work together in collaboration then the damage will be very serious. This type of attack is called Cooperative Blackhole/Grayhole attack. Due to these attacks packets are dropped leading to performance degradation in the network. This proposal discovers the reliable and secure route between source and destination by identifying and isolating Blackhole nodes and Grayhole nodes in the mobile ad hoc network.