Defence In-depth for Securing Wireless Ad-hoc Mesh Networks

Wireless ad-hoc mesh networks are formed by integrat-ing peer-to-peer ad-hoc networks through a mesh ofmultihop long haul connectivity based on the IEEE802.11 Wi-Fi standard. Such networks have a tremen-dous flexibility of deployment and can be used to pro-vide high bitrate connectivity to areas which lack wiredinfrastructure. Securing such a network is a seriousconcern keeping in view the security limitations of theexisting security standards for IEEE 802.11 based net-works.This paper focuses on the provision of security forwireless ad-hoc mesh networks. This is a challengingtask keeping in view the stringent resource constraintsof typical mobile ad-hoc networks and the inherent vul-nerability of the wireless medium. We analyze the secu-rity requirements, propose the design and implementa-tion of suitable security measures for protecting thesenetworks and carry out a detailed performance anal-ysis for our implementations. Our proposed solutionis based on the central idea of Identity-based Cryp-tography which simplifies the network security design,caters for the resource constraints of such networks andreduces the overall system complexity.