An adaptive learning routing protocol for the prevention of distributed denial of service attacks in wireless mesh networks

A Wireless mesh network is a wireless communication between different nodes which are dynamically self-organized and self-configured. The nodes in the network automatically establishing an ad-hoc network and maintaining the mesh connectivity, nodes communicate with each other by forwarding data packets to other nodes in the network. Thus the nodes find a path to the destination node using routing protocols. However, due to security vulnerabilities of the routing protocols, wireless mesh networks are unprotected to attacks of the malicious nodes. One of these attacks is the Black Hole Attack and gray hole attack , against network integrity absorbing all data packets in the network and gray hole random drop the packets. Since the data packets do not reach the destination node on account of this attack, data loss will occur. There are lots of detection and defense mechanisms to eliminate the intruder that carry out the black hole attack. In this thesis, I have simulated the black hole attack in various wireless mesh network scenarios and have tried to find a response system in simulations. Denial of service attacks is one of the most common types of attack which is possible in WMNs. DoS attacks are most common in networks which connect to internet and since WMNs are mainly designed for fast and long distance internet access this type of attacks are common in the network. Wireless mesh networks consist of both mesh routers and mesh clients. I have confined my studies to mesh routers which are stationary. I have implement both Gray Hole attack and black hole attack in mesh routers and study the delivery ratio of the network with and without the presence of attack routers. By simulating the scenario with AODV protocol I have study the delivery ratio of packets and find out how it is affecting the network in the presence of an attack router. KeywordsWireless Mesh Network (WMN), Network Simulator(NS), Denial Of Service Attack(Dos), AD-Hoc On Demand Distance Vector(Aodv).