Survey - Secure Routing Protocols of MANET

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is an autonomous system of mobile nodes connected by wireless links. Each node not only acts as end system, but also as a router to forward packets. The nodes are free to move and organize themselves and change topology dynamically, establishing an optimal and efficient route between the communicating parties is the primary concern of the routing protocols of MANET. But one of the main challenges in MANET is to design the robust security solution that can protect MANET from various routing attacks. Different mechanisms have been proposed using various cryptographic techniques to countermeasure the routing attacks against MANET. As a result, attacks with malicious intent have been and will be devised to exploit these vulnerabilities and to cripple the MANET operations. Attack prevention measures, such as authentication and encryption, can be used as the first line of defense for reducing the possibilities of attacks. Any attack in routing phase may disrupt the overall communication and the entire network can be paralyzed. Thus, security plays an important role the network (MANET). In this paper, we identify the existent security threats where an ad hoc network faces,and some of the issues and challenges of MANET, we have done literature survey and gathered information related to various types of attacks and solutions. However in short, we can say that the complete security solution requires the prevention, detection and reaction mechanisms applied in MANET.