A scalable, distributed and secure routing protocol for MANETs

Abstract

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) are becoming increasingly popular as more and more mobile devices find their way to the public. Due to MANETs inherent characteristics, secure routing may be one of the most difficult areas to tackle because opponents can add themselves to a MANET using the existing common routing protocols. Hence, this paper proposed a new model of routing protocol called ARANz, which is an extension of the original Authenticated Routing for Ad-Hoc Networks (ARAN). Later, we will demonstrate that apart from the authentication methods adopted from ARAN, ARANz aims to increase security, achieve robustness and solve the single point of failure and attack problems by introducing multiple Local Certificate Authority servers. We will demonstrate that via dealing with the network as zones and using restricted directional flooding, our new model will exhibit better scalability and performance.