An Evaluation of Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection Engines for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks are susceptible to a variety of attacks that threaten their operation and the provided services. Intrusion Detection Systems may act as defensive mechanisms, since they monitor network activities in order to detect malicious actions performed by intruders. Anomaly-based detection engines are a topic of ongoing interest in the research community, due to their advantage in detecting unknown attacks. However, this advantage is offset by a number of limitations such as high rates of false alarms, imposition of processing overhead, lack of adaptability under dynamic network conditions etc. This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation and comparison of the most recent literature in the area of anomaly detection for MANETs. The provided weaknesses and limitations, which are thoroughly examined in this paper, constitute open issues in the area of MANET security and will drive future research steps.