A New Set of Passive Routing Attacks in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In hostile environments, adversaries can launch passive attacks against interceptable routing information embedded in routing messages and data packets. Allowing adversaries to trace network routes and infer the motion pattern of nodes at the end of those routes may pose a serious threat to covert operations. In this paper we propose a feasible adversary model of such attacks, then present several instantiations and study the principles of designing corresponding countermeasures. We demonstrate that existing ad hoc routing protocols are vulnerable to passive attacks: in the feasible adversary model, (a) the location and motion patterns of mobile nodes can be traced, while (b) proactive and reactive/on-demand ad hoc routes across multiple mobile nodes can be visualized by the adversary. We conclude that ad hoc networks deployed in hostile environments need new countermeasures to resist such passive attacks.