Existing unicast routing protocols like for example AODV are not well suited for wireless mesh networks where most traffic flows between a large number of mobile nodes and a few access points that provide Internet connectivity. Therefore, two (anycast) routing schemes based on Fieldbased routing (FBR) have recently been proposed in our group. In field-based routing, each node is assigned a potential or field value and all nodes keep track of the potential values of their neighboring nodes. Access points and base-stations set their potential to infinity and nodes which are closer to an access point have a higher field value. Using these fields, packet forwarding is fairly simple: packets are forwarded along the nodes with the highest values until they eventually reach any access point.

Owing to their need for cooperative network operation, FBR is, like most ad-hoc routing protocols, susceptible to routing attacks as well as malicious and selfish node behavior. Typical examples of attacks on ad hoc network routing protocols are: inserting spoofed, altered, or eavesdropped routing information; selective forwarding (gray-holes); sinkhole/black-hole attacks; wormholes; DoS and flooding attacks.

The main tasks of this thesis are to identify general as well as specific attacks on the proposed FBR protocols and to propose counter-measures in order to avoid them or alleviate their impact. In short, to develop a secure field-based routing scheme.

Tasks

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• Become acquainted with the existing FBR protocols.
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• Study well-known (general) attacks on ad-hoc routing protocols and analyze their applicability to FBR.
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• Find new FBR-specific attacks.
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• Identify existing and devise new counter-measures/solutions (i.e., develop a secure field-based routing protocol).
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• Show their correctness and performance using (formal) security proofs and simulations.
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• Depending on the students interests/skills the focus of the thesis is either more on a theoretical or practical level.
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