“Intelligent Threshold-Based Wormhole Attack Detection in Secure On-Demand Routing Networks”

Abstract

Managing a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a challenging task due to its dynamic infrastructure and frequent node mobility. To improve energy efficiency and ensure secure communication, various routing and security mechanisms have been proposed. However, addressing security constraints in MANETs remains a critical challenge. Several attacks, including black hole, wormhole, and sinkhole attacks, pose significant threats to network security, while their effective detection and prevention remain major research challenges. Various techniques have been proposed for detecting wormhole attacks, including clock synchronization and nearest-neighbor node selection methods. In this research, a modified version of the Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol is proposed for the detection of wormhole attacks. The modified protocol, referred to as the Secured Energy-Efficient AODV (SEE-AODV) protocol, incorporates two primary functions: a threshold-based function and an energy-based function. The threshold-based function is used to identify abnormal distance variations between normal and potentially malicious (wormhole) nodes, whereas the energy-based function evaluates the energy consumed during network communication and routing operations. The proposed SEE-AODV protocol is designed to improve both security and energy efficiency compared with the conventional AODV routing protocol. To evaluate its performance, the proposed protocol was tested under various network conditions and simulation scenarios involving different node distributions. The proposed scheme was implemented and simulated using the NS-2 simulator with network sizes of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 nodes. Performance was evaluated using key network metrics, including Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), Average End-to-End Delay, Packet Throughput, and Energy Consumption. The results obtained from the simulations indicate that the proposed SEE-AODV scheme provides improved performance compared with the conventional AODV routing protocol, particularly in terms of secure communication and energy efficiency.