A Survey on Data Transmission Security in MANETs

An ad-hoc network is a collection of mobile nodes equipped with wireless communication adapters. These nodes dynamically form a temporary network without the need of any existing network infrastructure. Nodes in MANETs use radio signals with a finite range to communicate making it possible for any intermediate node to intercept the communication. Also the frequently changing topology, with high susceptibility to physical compromise along with the node’s limitations in terms of energy resource, storage device and CPU form a tremendous challenge in providing security to MANETs. Unlike wired networks, there is no central infrastructure, which paves way for new challenges as services provided by central entities is now to be ensured by the mobile nodes in the network itself. As a result, there is no definitive form of defense and a comprehensive security solution should encompass avoidance, detection and reaction along with sought-after network performances. Earlier works proposed secure routing mechanisms to defend against a range of attacks under different assumptions and system requirements. However, secure routing protocols alone, which ensures the correctness of the route discovery, cannot guarantee secure and undisrupted delivery of data. This paper identifies the security issues related to data transmission, discusses the challenges to security design, and reviews the current proposed solutions that protect the delivering of packets over the multihop wireless channel. Keywords—Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) security, secure data transmission, secure message transmission.